Part of Us
by Bacrep
Summary: We choose to go to space, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind. The goal will serve to organize and measure our utmost energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win. *Space Colonization
1. Cha 1- Prologue: A New Border

**Standard Disclaimer: I own One-Punch Man as much as Saitama owns hair.**

**Cha.1- Prologue: A New Border**

The unpigmented exterior of the low key laboratory stood humbly on the populated avenue, the street's overwhelming commuters circulating by without paying due attention.

The source of their ignorance was not their own negligence but the modesty of the one-story workshop. It was cramped between a resplendent skyscraper occupied by hungry millionaires and a robust foundation for the proposed chamber of the remixed United Nations. Yet, in the latter's still materializing blueprint, its stature cast a shadow over its juxtaposed runt of a neighbor.

Even if sporadic glances were shot the way of the elfish facility, they were only in remote confusion of the architectural oxymoron. However, the tourists' curiosity was quickly smothered by the passing crowd's indifference as they propelled the traffic, numb to the scenery of the anomaly.

In fact, even its name was distant to the passerby. Chewed only by elite masterminds, the anonymous title was in sharp contrast to its retired prototypes released to the world, among which were the famed supercomputers in the aforementioned financiers' lavish rooms capable of global monetary analysis, or the discharged satellites that were now worshipped by the global alliance's Star Wars Project.

"First Look." A young graduate, recent valedictorian of Stanford and son of the decade's second Nobel Laureate, muttered its peerless epithet, one that harmoniously integrated dominance with reservation.

_Well, at first look, it is not so impressive_, the boy mused. He could not understand the reason behind his father's decision to send him hither, over the luscious offer of a fellowship overseas or the Yale president's personal invitation to his graduate school on full grant.

Nevertheless, he took no more than a few seconds to inspect the soundlessly exclusive entrance before tightening his posture to an immaculate degree of professionalism. Forward he marched, an air of brilliant pride radiating. His figure disappeared as the automated door shut with absolute determination, closing the ulterior treasure again from public vision.

As if the entry was a portal that transported him to a galaxy unbeknownst, the sight before the scholar was in heavy distinction with its outer appearance. Gone was the understated tone, replaced by a dignified aura of sincerity.

Light streamed as if from deep space, with no detectable origin, and dazzled the interior with a glow as penetrating as sun rays, while achieving a reclining effect. Instead of the normal second of the eyes' discomfort transitioning from a bright morning to a gloomy setting, the bachelor of science had no visual hesitation in taking in the lab's ground floor in its totality.

The optical illusion of the street view did a disgrace on the vast room, but its lack of scientists made the immense space appear vacant. A vermilion carpet led the steps to the destination of the path: a reception desk, placed strategically at the end of the hallway, instead of serving as the pioneer. White, chiseled limestones revealed by the tidy wool led to brown doors on the sides, each of which was pinned with a small nametag.

The Nobel protégé found his way by the guiding light and textile to the desk, behind which sat a petite woman who gifted him a flawless smile. "Hello. You must be Mr. Suzuki."

Slightly taken aback, the addressed adult nodded, his face lagging by the camouflage of leftover adolescence. "Yes, I am. I am arrange to start today as an intern for First Look's Project…"

He looked down at his paper, voice trailing off as he read. "Project Termination of Debate Over the Superego Finality of Superficial Figure-Ground and Perceptual Ultimacy Achieved by Means of Technological Engineering in Place of the Evolutionary Perspective."

He blushed, internally sparring with the awkwardness of babbling. The woman looked at him in a glint of sympathy. "Yep, I know. We are all involved in some degree with it. It's the main agenda for First Look right now, so we have to say its name more than a few times a day. Here, we little ones call it Project Infinity."

She paused. "Not for the 'cosmic outcomes' that the two Chiefs pronounced, but more in spite of the name itself."

The newcomer shifted nervously, unsure of a proper response without potentially antagonizing his acquaintance, while maintaining an impression of respect for the referenced Chiefs.

"Don't be so stiff. This is a heaven! We don't exercise those rigid, ridiculous social protocols." The lady winked, vigilantly recognizing his agitation. "I have been ready for you since yesterday. New employees are as rare as artifacts. I am so hyped for you!"

The lady reached down and pulled a readied binder from underneath her furniture. Along with it came a key dangling by a string strapped onto the upper ring. "There's your office key, along with a basic manual of lab expectations."

"We don't have much stipulations or a thousand meaningless divergence of the basic rules of humanity. You get enough incoherence in project titles." She somehow made a wry expression appear reverent. "Everyone here has an IQ above 180. As long as you follow morals and not try to disgrace another's intelligence with pitiful stratagems, there should be no trouble."

"Also the motto." Her face turned sacred at the mention of it, almost like a mask. "'No member of First Look shall take advantage of another member of First Look.'"

"That's… short and to the point." The valedictorian opinionated. "Are there, you know, unspoken rules, then?"

"Nope. The goal of science is to organize a straight line from one point to another. The two Chiefs hate making things more complicated than they are. That being said, complex politics is First Look's most guarded enemy."

_This is more than eccentric…_ The graduate reflected. He began to see why his father had chosen this internship over the standard routes. There was an attraction already building, a cohesion stemming from… mutual rapport?

He was directed to his office, one of the rooms behind the row of brown doors fortifying the entrance, after the receptionist kindly expressed her willingness to aid with any issue at all.

The office was simple, like a square prism, but yet comprehensive, supplied with an antiquated desk facing the entryway, a couch lining the side wall, couple of cabinets, an overhead fan, as well as other accessories. Granted that he was only a novice on his first day of work, the unexpected gift of his own province he found gratifying.

The young gentleman opened the folder, unveiling a thin collection of papers he estimated to be at most ten double-sided sheets. As he indulged in the words, the appointed intern became first familiarized, then awestruck at the unknown supremacy in which he had stumbled.

The laboratory's inveterate tradition was concentrated on humility and concealment, as well as density, whether in intelligence or integrity. Therefore, it made sense to have an unimpressive exterior, but, like its downplayed achievements, its genuine structure was hidden _underground_.

Compared to the ostentatious towers, this establishment had truly surpassed the modern art of construction by any and all means. There were hundreds of floors downwards, each requiring more security and privilege than the one above.

What's more, the manual stated explicitly that the last floor preserved the secrets to immortality and the perfection of Darwinism, along with clairvoyance, the lost Tai Chi, invincibility…

However, it was no doubt that reality only became myths after unbounded twists of plot had been adjoined by the human minds and gossiping mouths. To seek the strand of truth from the attached fiction demanded more than smarts and logic. It required a pair of untarnished eyes and able hands.

Such were hard to find in the heterogeneous society, and they were not made easier to uncover even in a crowd of the world's most acute talents. Hence, only six people sat in front of the Supercomputer XI on the three hundred sixty-fifth floor, their heads wearing an elaborate helmet as they stared intently at the enormous screen… playing _Heart-Throb Sisters_…

"Are you mother suckers serious right now!?" A figure bellowed as he slammed open the door of the stairway connected to the last floor, bursting back up. "Do y'all want me to just die of a stroke so you can take over as Chief!?"

"Please, sir, you can't die of a stroke… maybe unless the strain is from a black hole caused by the collapse of a supercluster." One of the players replied mindlessly, eyes still trained on the screen of the quantum calculator, through the mask of a virtual reality imitator.

A second, female figure slid in behind the first Chief. She eyed them with the venom of a warden patrolling her prison of innocent bystanders. Somewhere in the world, there was a torrent of volcanic ash spinning into a tornado with the help of arctic winds.

Curtly, she encapsulated the situation's two main conflicts. "I don't know if I am more upset about your using our simulator that can replicate an experiment of YEARS down to DAYS for a ridiculous barbie game, or the fact that you didn't even think to _invite _us!"

"Ma'am, may I ask you to please shorten your complaint down to twenty words or less?" Another voice sounded without its user taking his eyes off the display.

The tornado was threatening to lose control and inundate the world with icy hot, and it turned thermonuclear as her equivalently ranked counterpart interjected in laughter. "Good one! That's our hidden motto!"

"Thanks, Chief! Wanna play?" A helmet was handed over.

"Of course!" The male figure smirked at the shapely figure beside him. "Joining us, rambler?"

Hostility undulated. "Have your fun now! Just wait until you lose our bet! I'll be waiting for that letter of resignation."

"Mmhmm. Demote me to an intern and I'll work my way back upto Chief in a year. C'mon, we do this constantly." He picked up the cephalic contraption and replied without as much as a grimace. "Plus, I don't lose."

"Ummm… Boss, you lost three times." One of his subordinates spoke up through the purrs of a very openly-dressed fantasy character.

"Keep talking, and you'll be the one starting from Day 0." The addressed leader slapped him on the back of the head and spared an instigating glimpse for his chortling contender. "I don't know why you're laughing. You failed four times."

"..." Her hair comically inflated from a pretty bow bun into exaggerated bunny ears. "Just you watch! When it finished, I'm gonna make you begin in the janitorial closet!"

"You gonna play or not?" He held the last headgear up, it lingering by the tip of his pinky, while resolving in his mind the final verdict between an incessant, verbal argument with a tangible damsel and an incessant, bodily discussion with a digital one.

She huffed and snatched it over, balancing it on her bubbly curls. The lock to the three hundred and sixty-sixth floor fastened itself, and the room returned to a state of shady lights and s̶e̶n̶s̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶m̶o̶a̶n̶s̶ courteous conversation.

* * *

"Welcome back to Alphabet Announcement, the regional station for the most accurate news report, weather forecast, and emergency updates. Thank you for joining us." A TV monitor shimmered with the only light in the dark room.

"Breaking news: The inspection result for City A's recent annihilation in the mysterious UFO assault has been officially enumerated. Casualties count up to seventy million people, wounded or perished, with nine trillion dollars vaporized in the demolition of 99.8% of the settlement."

"Classified by the Hero Association as the pinnacle of all Dragon-level threats, it resulted in damage that had surmounted all of past devastation in the hands of similarly ranked perils," The voice ceased, sparing time for a breath of exigency in order to continue. "Combined."

Soft murmur resonated in the room to condense into a noticeable reverberation that divulged the latitude of the chamber.

"Sitch, the Minister Officer of Justice, serving additionally as the Hero Association elite placed in charge for the preparation to this disaster, had declined to be interviewed, but he was heard to mourn the event as 'a day which will live in infamy.'"

"The organization's spokespeople expressed the proposition for an expeditious return to normalcy, but they, when pressed for a reconstruction procedure, had yet to propound a cogent routine to do so."

"The Alphabet Announcement has enlisted correspondents who are in constant touch with the Association, and further intelligence would be delivered. But first, a word from our sponsors." The screen dimmed to dullness, the channel silenced in the process.

On the other hand, rows of lengthy, incandescent bulbs bathed the auditorium in a glistening shower, but the intensifying brightness struggled to bring about a similar elevation in the spirits of the listeners.

This was the main assembly room of the Association Headquarters, the only tower in City A that stood adamantine. Up in the VIP box, an expansive area limited only by its name, sat all eight appointed executives, along with twelve of the shareholders, including Agoni, the chairman of the board and founder of the agency.

They were positioned horizontally across a wide table, all facing the same direction. Opposing them, a man sat on the edge of his seat, head hanging as low as the tip of his tie.

As if the tension of the interrogation in itself was not enough, the twenty administrators all stared at him without a word, trapping him between a depressing silence and the persistent haunt of the mortality statistics.

Finally, Agoni spoke up, his voice more a dreaded conviction than a holy blessing to his ears. "Sitch, I'm not disappointed… nor is any of us here."

The officer in question raised his head enough to touch the elder's eyes, before blinding his own. He had no reply, and he knew that they wanted none. His sacrificial task was to merely listen, listen and then walk the plank, to be smoked into a slab of exquisite lambchop priced at an exploitative nine trillion dollars.

"But the people are, Sitch, the people!" The baritone pursued, an unblemished tone asphalted with gilded care and generosity. "Please look at me."

The prosecuted confessed his bloodshot sclera to the demanding judge on his high throne, who smiled in convolution. "It pains me immensely to have to demote a fellow member of justice, you all must know this."

His parallels gestured with conforming nods, which seemingly satisfied the autocrat. "However, I do think, oh dear Sitch, that old age had caught up. It would seem you might benefit from a relaxing furlough, to loosen the taut knot a little."

There was a lasting pause, indicating to the addressee that his voice was lusted after. "Yes sir."

"Ahhh, wonderful. I would hate to see a passionate member being backbroken to labor. Your health comes first, friend." Agoni's melody was soaked in an saccharine eternity that could dismiss Sweet Mask's albums to the downwinding shade.

"Your first check of pension, Sitch, will be infused with a bonus that shall unconditionally cover your choice of vacation, for as long as you wish." He winked. "My treat, old pal."

_Vacation… For as long as he wished…_ The lone male ruminated bitterly… _yes, as __**he**_ _wished_.

The room fell back to a grave silence. Needles pierced through the deserted goat's heart, one that had aged a year for a second in the last minute.

The ex-officer stood. His hand reached unobstructedly into his breast pocket and heaved out the prepared IDs, all bunched neatly by a thin rubber band as grey as his hair. He placed them down on his chair gently, like the twinkle of the stars shedding on a spilled latrine.

Wordlessly, he left, trailing behind the dusts of not his legacy, but just of strait, soon-to-be forgotten footsteps. A uniformed secretary appeared at the exit, showcasing the convenient apparatus.

Agoni watched as Sitch's warped silhouette was engulfed by the rush of time, shaking his head miserably. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last of my wishes."

"However, on a more positive note, I've received news primarily from Sweet Mask, who ensured a link of empathy from the cities in which he had toured." His unrivaled sedan was lifted by the applause of his porters. "It is such a treasure from God to have our A-ranked zenith supporting our righteous cause, wouldn't you say so?"

Again, optimistic chuckles and addicted agreement greeted the opinion. The expression of secretary brightened first by the sobriquet, then the 'classified' revelation wavered to her _coincidentally_ as she walked in.

Agoni waved politely at her. "Please, if he's ready, invite Metal Knight in."

* * *

The door sealed. A few seconds later, loud stomping shook the floor, sending vibrations into even the box.

The Chairman was not the least fazed, his glittering vizard only growing more fluoresce as a giant, four-legged steel bot challenged the surface area of the entrance.

It bypassed the recommended chair, still slightly warm, to resettle right in front of the directors, folding its legs under itself. A programmed, rusty dialogue rustled the senior's eardrums. "Greetings. I've come for your business proposal."

"I see. Let me just take a second to relay how gleeful we are to have invited your presence during your time off."

"With all due respect, please cut to the chase. There is an underestimation of the quantity of energy necessary for the activation of my machines."

"No problem, Metal Knight. We've specially prepared a written synopsis for your scanning to catalyze this process." Sekingar, an executive sitting directly to Agoni's right, spoke up.

He was an average man at first look, until a second glimpse at his left eye commonly inspired a gasp for first-timers. In place of the eyeball was an implanted mechanical prosthetic, which aided in a gradually precipitating outlook of phlegmatic sturdiness.

From the gadget displaced a feeble beam that stabilized into a holographic stack of papers incisively detailing the elements of the announced proposal.

A resonating white poured out of the S-Ranker's android and swept through the informative contract within seconds. Another few minutes of uninterrupted deliberation sifted through its intricate motherboard.

"If I understand it correctly, you desire to annex City A and convert it to solely Hero Association use." He succinctly compressed the writing. "Thus, you offer the stated sum for a renovation within one month?"

"Indeed. What do you think?" Sekingar inquired, adapting to the curt fashion of oration.

"I give you my affirmation. Have the currency transferred in three days." The robot stood up, considering the meeting terminated.

"Please spare us with one more moment, Metal Knight." Agoni's firm request reached the automation's auditory device. "I would like to interview your attitude on the invasion of the UFO."

"Chairman, I exhort you to forego the pointless apparition of a prologue. What is on your mind?"

The billionaire's lips danced, complying to the appeal for an oral shortcut, which was quite ironic in its lengthy delivery. "Very well. In summary, the spaceship has revealed to me how little humanity really understands of the world beyond this simple Earth."

"Besides our neighboring planets, we had yet dared to venture out of our comfort zone, and never had we considered the prospects beyond the borders of our solar system." His hands tightened, his posture shifting unconsciously into one of focus.

"Yesterday, an abhorrently advanced technology came and wiped out the capital of the Alphabet. Only God knows what tomorrow can bring. There's no way to combat such threats by simply burying our heads below the sand." Agoni's tone progressed up the chain of eagerness.

The man raised his head up, as if peering at the darkness above through the confines of the roof, the same way a rebel stared at the lavish palace of his tyrant. He extended his hand, hoping to clench the luminous specks in his palm.

"Rather, we must utilize our wings, however burdensome, to ascend and sought after the origin of the threats, to quarantine and safeguard _their _power source, and to rehabilitate _its _corruption to justice!"

He finished by slamming his fist down, panting. The golem gazed at him blankly, before commenting at last. "You sure have a way with words, old man."

"So you basically want to start a collaboration for space exploration? An expansion of civilization into the universe? To spread your control even further?" The hero's substitute blared.

"If you're mobilizing my factory, allow me to assure you that the Association simply do not possess the funds, even though I do have the capability. It is an appetite much more extensive than reshaping City A."

"Metal Knight…" The Association leader closed his eyes. "Aren't you curious?"

For the first time, the driod's geared plates reflected an emotion besides impatience. "What?"

"I know you salvaged the crashed UFO. I'm sure it brought even you a torrent of engineering amazement. Well, haven't you wondered what else is out there? New forms of energy, chemicals, _blueprints!?_" The elder's voice slithered like Pandora's serpent. "Infinite possibilities. You had stood at the apex for a prolonged length already. Earth is only a prison for you."

"Think, even with all else not mattering, the fame and legacy with which you will be commended if you became the initiator of deep space travel. Perhaps, history books would record you as the Father of New Humanity…"

"Halt, Agoni. I have no interest in reputation, though I must applaud your skill in the manipulation of human nature." The bot's eyes twirled in a mysterious light of sorts from the other end. "You've managed to spark my musing about viable new finds unavailable on Earth. It is a worthwhile idea, I suppose."

"However, that is not to say I will acquiesce in this visibly fruitless expedition without a heartfelt presentation on the Association's part. What is your offer, and what is your plan to go through with this… improbability?"

Sekingar's gadget formed another stack of virtual paperwork, this one piling much higher than the last. Metal Knight shot an analytic laser through the portrayal.

A few minutes flailed by, and then more. Abruptly, the iron construction bounced up, eyes escalating to maximal battery output. "Impossible! She would _never _agree to this!"

"How about a bet?" Agoni smirked with the unspoken confidence hidden behind the constantly grinning face of the Association's leading mastermind. "If she _does _consent, then you shall accede to the organization of our space force, still, of course, with the salary as listed. If I lost, then I will present the same sum of money and privileges without any argument or demand."

"It's always a bad idea betting with you, kitsune." The robot immediately shook his head as fast as a rattle drum. "But, if you can really persuade her to yield, then, in any case, I would deem it a show worthy enough of my time."

"So, your decision?"

"I accept." The machine paused. "The bet."

* * *

Agoni stood adjacent to a large window in his office that served simultaneously as the fourth wall. Below was the luxurious sight available only from the hundredth floor of the Headquarters.

However, what was to be magnificent scenery was reduced to insensible piles of rubble in the most severe crisis in modern history. Regardless, the elder was pleased. Compared to the previous day, more evidence of decimation had disappeared than remained.

A night and morning had slipped by since the meeting with Metal Knight, whose efficiency shocked even one of the most guileful man on Earth. Nevertheless, his stupefaction worked to his advantage this time, as public positivity was already flooding in.

The reconstruction was in perfect accordance with the S-Ranker's outlined agenda. By the end of today, all traces of savagery should be restored back to their raw form in the Knight's furnaces, which could then be used for instituting civility.

The torn landscape was no longer on his list of troubles. This was not the first hedge with the tech-god, and none in the past had betrayed his competence.

In contrast, another looming cyclone was descending, one that involved a torrent of vibrant green too zealous for her head… or his.

Just as he was reviewing his speech again in his head, knocks sounded on his door. Adjusting his suit, Agoni called. "Enter."  
A head poked in. It was his secretary. "Sir! Miss Tatsumaki is here."

"Tornado! The name is Tornado of Terror!" An intransigent disapproval protruded the stout material with which the indestructible Association was built. The Chairman internally winced at the thought of leveraging with the organization's most difficult hero.

"Please join me." He replied, daring not make the impatient female wait. She was no Metal Knight… hell, she was no anybody!

His secretary excused herself from the esper's course, allowing her to float into the wide office, before bringing the door to a close, all the while praying for her boss's health.

Agoni took in the petite frame of the secondly ranked S class. Her adolescent face and fragile physique were more misleading than his own phonaesthetics were.

The first time Darkshine met her at his S-ranked ceremony, his joking label of her as a "greenhead" motivated a two-hour makeout session with the consequentially vandalized wall. Come to think of it, it was the first and only time he had seen anyone damage the Headquarters structure.

In fact, Darkshine's butt mark is still imprinted in that dance room…

Tactfully, he extracted his glance of inspection before the insidious psychic's gelid glint found his gaze too passionate. "Welcome, Miss… Tornado."

"What do you want? Hurry it up!" Her arms were crossed in their standard fashion of panache, while her sight curved down at him from their ironically lofty position. "I don't have time for this. There are monsters to squish."

Agoni hid his weariness well and gestured to the _seat_ in front of him. Tatsumaki grumbled and shrunk into the chair, height back to Year 12. The director felt no more in control.

"I understand your temptation to pancake Mysterious Beings, and you've been getting tired of the Tiger and Demon threats of recency…"  
He was cut off by a prideful huff. "Mere caterpillars."

Coughing, he picked up the broken communication. "Anyway, I have found more of a challenge, monsters that only you, the utmost powerful Tornado, could handle."

"Oh?" Her disinterested face perked up, attention tactically captured. "Where is it? Dragon-level? How many? Speak, old man!"

"Yes, Dragon-level, maybe even God-level. No one else has a chance, Miss." Agoni smirked under his skin. She was still too young, too blatant to shroud her cravings that could be cunningly arranged for seduction. "As for numbers, I would say perhaps in the hundreds, with even more massive armies of lesser reinforcements."

Flame tangoed in Tatsumaki's eyes, not the least perturbed by the count or the _impossible_ chance of her losing. Her cells were screaming, her curls fluttering like flags in unconscious viridescence.

"WHERE!?" The girl demanded, burrowing furiously into his irises.

The executive pointed above him. "In space."

The hanging light in path of her and 'space' shattered into dust. Agoni gave himself a mental pat on the back. Only a chandelier. Not bad.

"Are. You. Messing. With. ME!?" Tatsumaki yelled with the ferocity of a lifting rocket, hair trumpeting on their ends histrionically. "Do you understand how precious my time is!?"

"Why are you upset, Tornado?" The owner of the office smiled at her with everlasting radiance.

"Well, genius, how the HELL am I supposed to get to damn _space_!?" The psionic expert bawled out her predicament. "Plus, what does a monkey like you know about space?"

"Blast told us." The alleged Cercopithecidae announced, noticing the widening pupils and avalanching aura. "He's back from the Northern Constellations."

_Blast_… A million ambivalent images of her… _the _hero soared through her mind, interrupting even her psychic pulses. Spontaneously, she submerged back into the leather chair she all of a sudden deemed comfortable.

Agoni declined to speak again, instead vouching to give the telekinetic storm some peace. The clock ticked on.

Tatsumaki picked her head up, expression softened enough to allow for a slippage of femininity.

"What else did he tell you runts?" She interrogated.

"He wants to erect a second Earth at the astronomical pole of the galaxy, directly opposite from here." The Chairman beamed with potency, discerning that the lioness had swallowed the bait. Gone was the worry that the lure was not attractive enough.

"One with livable conditions so that, one day, humans can inhabit it." His only job now was to escort her to the finish line. "And he wants _your_ help."

Tatsumaki said nothing. _He _mentioned that he would be venturing on an adventure two years ago before entrusting her with protecting the world, but he never informed her that he would be roving _that_ far from her.

Well, he was back now. She didn't need to regulate the world any longer. No wonder there was an unforeseen, dramatic decrease in Dragon monsters. They should have been sprawling by now with so many S-rankers exhausted from the space-dawned disaster.

How was she going to explain the eradicated City A to him? No, he already knew. He probably was called back because of the UFO attack. Bloody hades, only he could travel millions of light years in a _day_.

She looked back at Agoni, a stab of fatigue obscured well. "What do you want, then?"

Agoni's shadow gagged. When the hell did she care about what he wanted?

"Well, a secondary colony across the galaxy is an outstanding idea. Not to say that new opportunities are laden with each step, it would even serve as humanity's backup life. Furthermore…"

"Who asked you about your opinion!? Just tell me what I should do!" Tatsumaki interrupted in her standard infernal intonation. "When do I take off?"

A streak of astonishment sparkled against the Chairman's lens. Blast had remarked that the reference of his appellation would observe a speedy transaction, but Agoni, in no way, forecasted what surfaced as virtually submission.

Against his better acumen, he voiced out his curiosity. "Miss Tornado… aren't you… going to give it more thought?"

"Why should I?" She stared blankly. "Blast said there are monsters up there, right? What is there to mull over? It's not as if there are entanglements on Earth that I'm nostalgic about!"

For a second, the Chairman's heart nearly went out to her. Nearly.

Tatsumaki paused, commenting aloud. "Except for Fubuki. I need to leave a note to him to watch over her. You better not give her dangerous jobs!"

"Your assignment is described in this manual." Agoni produced a colossal binder from beneath his desk. "It's a tremendously extensive project that could take years, even decades, centuries. Just look. The first sub-step is building an atmosphere. The intricate details are all put down here. You just need to follow the procedures…"

"Just give me that!" The esper snatched the gargantuan literature over… and failed. The directory was merely dragged a few inches before being defeated by the curse of friction. Tatsumaki glowered and lifted it brutely by psychic, before dashing out.

_That was… actually… not as onerous as Child Emperor's simulations foretold_, Agoni cogitated, wiping a drop of sweat off his brow. Suddenly, an epiphany struck as his expression contorted bitterly into one of the Tornado of Terror's victims.

He forgot to address the _principal _challenge of this errand! The speed in her mellow reaction to his first entreaty had subconsciously knocked him off his boots. The elder rushed to the door, but Tatsumaki's timid image had already vanished.

On another thought, let's save that for the second discussion. Today had been enough of a hassle. The head of the Hero Association sighed, closing the door.

Leaning marginally against it, out of the sight of any audience, he whimpered at the nag at the back of his head that reiterated how there would be a _second_ meeting.

In his moment of slack, he was somewhat startled by the buzzing phone. Murmuring an obscenity at the offensive communication device, he walked over and flicked at the speaker button.

The nonstop voice of his _endearing_ secretary transmitted through. "Sir! Demon Cyborg is here to see you. Is Tornado…"

"She left." Agoni straightened his posture as the optimism of the tiny victory he had over life zonked. Fixated on the invisible sign atop his door that read 'Patience is a virtue,' he opted to relinquish even more of his time to the dealings of this space affair.

"Send him in." He issued the permission before clicking the phone off.

* * *

Genos entered to see Agoni standing up, with two glasses of yellow liquid which he scanned to be apparently champagne. An unreasonable smile stretched across the Chairman's face, a body language that tended to express happiness or positivity.

Or at least that was what his database concluded through extrapolation of the mean. "Salutations, Chairman of the Board. What assistance might the top executive of the Hero Association request from me?"

"Hoho, don't be so businesslike, lad." The addressed billionaire handed over a glass of the priced drink cheerfully. "Today is as much a day to celebrate your achievements as to introduce an eccentric… task."

The synthetic creature grasped the glass with an iron grip and took a sip, before looking up indifferently. "The beverage is quite mild in its conversion to biofuel. Have you considered milkshake to be a more appropriate potation for festivity?"

Agoni almost choked on his cup and stared at the robot in disbelief. Was he seriously suggesting that the creamed product was to be a match for his prodigal liquor?

No. The former had ostensibly lapped the latter in the metaphorical race for supremacy in the android's technical examination.

The picturesque mood fully extirpated, the elite daintily placed the chalice down, prompting his guest to mimic the action. "Demon Cyborg, you have been an S-ranked hero for months now. What is your opinion of our environment?"

Genos scowled slightly, his natural facial formulation for intense reflection. "I would say that the biomes are very much polluted, with air contamination in Cities reaching up to 2.5 parts per million, which could be translated to 12 micrograms of smog per cubic meter of air."

The Chairman's eyes bulged out. He was very glad that he had placed down his cup so that no excess alcohol could murder him by blocking his airways.

Agoni was a champion of poker, whether figuratively or literally, in all aspects from politics to finance. And for him, the most grievous opponent was not another player of the same rank, but one who knew not the rules of the game.

There was literally no way to predict an advance and account for it. And now, he must challenge two in a single noon.

"I mean, Mr. Genos, the Hero Association! How have we been treating you?" He articulated with strained effort, hand wiping a drop of sweat off his brow.

"Ahhh, thank you for the clarification." The mech responded impassively. "In respect to the average beneficiary's concerns, your insurance, pension, and salary have all skyrocketed out of the second standard deviation of a normal curve."

The executive took a moment to filter the politically impeccable statement. "So you think that our privileges are indeed… serviceable."

"It is certainly 78 percent of popular opinion, according to the Alphabet News survey." The android paused. "My apologies. It had just dropped to 77 percent."

Agoni made a mental note to have Child Emperor update his simulator to upgrade the difficulty of all social interactions with the superhumans widely known as 'cyborgs.'

"... Thank you for your confidence in our abilities." He decided to cut to the chase— quite a feat for the king of eloquence. "I think we might have an assortment of information that is to your interest."

Genos raised his artificial eyebrow at the file passed toward him, highly doubtful. Nonetheless, he opened the folder and commenced to piece together the pixels.

Only a few seconds into the inspection, the chair below him exploded into splinters. His rigid, iron-clad countenance somehow distorted from their engineering configuration into a hideous monstrosity substantially spookier than his neutral scowl, as if his internal inferno had melted both the metallic paint and the modicum of humanity left.

His body dazed into yellowish-crimson, clothes vaporizing along with his white iris, replaced by scarlet. The rogue formation glared with an understatement of meanness at the boss.

"WHERE THE HELL IS HE!?" A profound bellow detonated from the highest elevation in City A, so boisterous it suppressed Metal Knight's construction drones in their undeclared noise competition.

Demon Cyborg's orbs were burning a pair of expanding holes into the cellulose portrait before him… the photo of another towering cyborg.

His sensai had asked him to compressed his history into twenty words or less. But, by bringing him face to face to even a two-dimensional source of his childhood suffering, he discovered that he could condense it to a single word.

**Die**.

Or other synonyms incapable of outright description.

"We don't know." Agoni scooched back, unintentionally exposing his apprehension. The languor was palpable, materializing into sweat that dripped down the Chairman's neck.

The rampant sentience regarded him through his two entrance to Hell, adjudicating Agoni's innocence only after a breathtaking wait that left the prosecuted in cyanosis.

"Is this all the intelligence your surveillance had generated?" Genos spat with the venom that could rival the Deep Sea King. He crumbled the slim picture, the only treasure its container entombed.

"No, it is not." Agoni matched his eyes, his inner chill mustering into a daring pool of hydrogen that threatened his life by volunteering to tamper with a freak whose rocket boots still blared of flames.

"Give me all your possession of knowledge!" The humanoid's visual implements crackled with the malicious electricity from a dozen short circuits, like the ancient ions conserving in the skies to eventually nominate a bolt for the primordial seas.

"No!" Agoni gritted his teeth and stood his ground. Behind the cover of daily deceit, polite posture, submissive supplements, and tantalizing trickery was the reason why _he_ was the founder of the Hero Association and arguably the most influential man in the Alphabet in ways that excelled brute force.

Their respective strength clashed for a seeming eternity. At last, something creaked in Genos's body, like a machine whose gears had rusted over years of unuse. The fire died down as oxygen was deprecated. "What is your reason for refusal?"

The thunder had failed to evaporate the ocean. Instead, the first prokaryote was synthesized through the heat, the second milestone of creation, the first being the fusion of atoms within the tornadoes of solar reactors.

"Because they are top secret information, coded triple S for security." Agoni shook his head. "Even I can access only double S. You can only freely obtain single S."  
"What must I do? Inform me!?" The ruffian half-screamed his demand for exploitation into the Chairman's face.

"You must contribute in terms of heroic points to the Association. The problem, however, is that there are no missions altogether that you can collect over a span of years that could reserve you enough points to access a triple S document."

He stared at the destructive contrivance. "Not even singlehandedly disentangling a God-level threat could earn you the necessary credit."

Genos growled. "If years aren't enough, I'll go for decades! As long as it takes to put him to justice!"

"Yes, but, have you accounted for the fact that all our information may be rendered nullified by the time you are done? You might have to begin your search all over again."

The robot blazed back up, streaks of aggression overtly painted. "Allow me to hold responsibility for the entire mission archive!"

"There is no need. Please let me finish, Demon Cyborg." This time, the Chairman was not at all fazed. The shark was frightening in the waters, but its jaws were of no use on land, capable only for a show of stationary, harmless one-way motion.

"There came an assignment recently that could provide all the points necessary for your convenience. I left it open just for your serendipity, my _friend_." Agoni expertly tried for a wave of strategic diplomacy that stirred no visible effect.

"Elaborate." The drip froze before rolling off the motorized icicle of a tongue.

The manager found it displeasing when the snappish tone was used against him, but nevertheless abiding. "A space exploration, mister. We need you to go to space for a few months for… certain architectural objectives."

"When you return, you will be awarded the confidence of your wish." The old flytrap watched the fluttering insect twirling around the alluring aroma.

"The duration of this assignment is only a few months?" Genos inquired.

Agoni answered without hesitation, as if practiced. "Indeed. No longer."

* * *

Tatsumaki came out of her kitchen armed with a bowl of organic tortilla chips and a can of sparkling water. She made a face as she fished out a strand of her green locks from the bowl, wondering what distracted her from just using psychic instead.

Her apartment was, well, the pictorial demonstration that popped up in the dictionary when flipped to the word 'simplicity.'

Indeed, the Tornado of Terror kept a living room free of any junk, as oppose to the destruction her namesake leaves… or, for that matter, she herself.

She had a zero tolerance policy for trash, which included both the materialistic or biological kind, classified, of course, by her callous perspective.

Her walls evaded the sacrilegious abomination of Sweet Mask, while her floor was sheathed by a modest layer of black carpet that resonated with her black dress, her black TV, black couch, and darkwood table that was… hot pink.

Wait! Hot pink!? Tatsumaki's snacks flew out of her hands as her body quaked into the most brilliant green she had released in a long time.

Who the HELL was here!? Who befouled her one sole sanctuary of sanity? And most of all, who had the ability to break through her psionic shield without its backlash tearing the intruder into pieces!? And without her detection!?

Suddenly, her flapping curls solidified in its motion eerily, and not to her doing, like a palm tree frozen dead in time pushed aside by the winds of a motionless typhoon.

The FREAK!? Intense bolts of arcane lightning slashed out, but the aberrant tesla wriggled out mere inches before they were forced back through her pores, as if subjected to an impossible gravity.

The unplugged television scintillated into a full display. Moments of The Ring flashed through the esper's mind as she stared in horror, both from the fact that a cordless electronic had flickered open and the more dominant reason that… her powers were restrained by… a force greater than even HERS!

HOLD THE FLIPPING BLOODY PERDITION ON! There was NOT a single, living damned mightier than HER!

Tatsumaki's brain buzzed into a hazardous level of drudgery that she KNEW would curse her with a migraine for weeks… maybe even a concussion. She cared not, her pride impaled and safety terrorized.

Finally, the clandestine chains on her physique faltered ever so slightly, and Tatsumaki struggled to elevate her hand. She was not at all relieved though. She was protesting with the gravity of a galactic black hole, a state that even the blessed esper could not sustain for long periods of time.

Nor had she ever. Most adversary fell at the pull of a small one.

Abruptly, the a blot of fluffy clouds emerged in the screen of the lit TV. A voice that she had not heard for a long time, a voice that she could never forget, strung out. "I've told you this many times already. Before you attack, process the situation first, or else you could too easily become someone else's blade… for free."

The sturdy tone flowed harmoniously with a mysterious wind that ruffled her hair with the same gesticulation of a familiar hand brushing her locks.

Tatsumaki's posture shivered, her power degenerating at an exponential rate. "B-Blast?"

"Yes, Maki, it's me." The cloud shifted and turned to a translucent silhouette of a man whose significant quiddities were blurred. "Can we talk nicely now?"

The psychic opened her mouth to speak, before her levitation precipitously cancelled out, freeing her fragile frame to collapse onto the couch. The brewing after-effect had finally flared up into a bang of agony in which her mind too quickly overdosed. The legendary battle of hurricane of anguish versus tornado of terror warred unceremoniously in her head.

Even the few seconds of transgressing her limits had strained her Pneuma beyond the predicted fathom. She didn't know for how long she wrestled the intangible enemy before a tranquilizing chill cryonized her mind.

"You're making me do a lot of work for a simple welcome." The same voice echoed in her private space. The cloud was no longer in the screen, but had somehow spawned in her Pneuma's imagination.

The grandiose psyche immediately neutralized her pain from the backlash. She stared and took an unsure step forward. Her hand reached out with a… _timid_ sense, as if fearing that the shape would wither away without meticulous precaution.

She made contact. It was soft and warm, and it answered her pleas to not disintegrate. Back to cloud-form, the S-ranker who oversaw the food chain in its entirety spoke with a congenital regality. "Good job with everything while I'm gone."

"I know! I'm strong and independent now!" The second heavyhitter on the ladder puffed out her chest in an undignified, childish fashion that would prompt the jaws of thousands of people to slam into the ground to create a combined volume of holes as majestic as the Grand Ravine.

"You're not quite making your case here." The seemingly paternal figure glanced at her hand, still pressed onto the white cotton of his form.

Tatsumaki blushed, a facial phenomenon that even she herself thought went extinct due to, hell, the clogging of her veins.

An awkward silence ensured for ten minutes with the two powerhouses simply gazing at each other.

"Nevermind." Blast sighed. "Save the greeting. It'll be a lot less excruciating for both of us."

"No, I can do this!" The younger esper struggled. "I-I'm…"

Her childhood mentor raised an eyebrow. She twisted under the expectant stare. "I'm g-glad to…"

Her tongue fell back to anticlimactic quiescence. Blast blew out an air of disappointment. "If you want, we can try this later."

Tatsumaki pouted, yet ANOTHER gesture that could be recorded in the Quinness Book of World Records for a millennia. "Why are you here?"

In his decades of experience, the proper answer for an _average _girl was 'Because I want to see you,' but he booted the thought as rapidly as it surfaced. "Agoni had talked to you today?"

"Yes." She raised her head, a flash of hurt crossing her eyes before her ego took command. "Why didn't you take me?"

"Who else would there be to protect the world?" Blast responded immediately, as if prepared. "Silver Fang? Atomic Samurai? Those Ichor-barbarians can't fend off against a slightly bigger terrestrial monster who flies!"

"More joined after them, you know." His sonorous assertion brought a haughty smile to the psychic's fair-skinned face. "Though none even scratched their magnitude, and infinitely from me…"

She paused, rearranging her thoughts, before reinitiating her report. "Except for this big fat dude who devours everything. His ability isn't too bad. There's also this one kid whose Pneuma was ingenious enough to digest post doctorate level engineering to a decent extent, but his combating capability is downright trash. The Tech Nerd of high… middle school."

"There's a guy who's the combination of a zombie and a human. He can heal any wounds, even if he's diced up into tiny quartz, but the more severe the injury, the more time it takes to heal. I can kill him by simply sucking him into a black hole." The psychic bragged flippantly.

She summed it up. "So yeah, they've all breached the _First Limit_ of human capacity in either Ichor or Pneuma. Kid and dead guy are at Pre-First, piggy is at Mid-First, compared to dojo master and samurai who are still trapped at Post-First."

Blast only smiled and nodded, silently putting abilities to the names he was given upon return. She continued. "Then, there are two other ones whom I can't see through."

"One goes by the name of King. There are zero recordings of him fighting. Although I've meant to challenge him for a year now, I never got to for one reason or the other, unfortunately. My intuition tells me he's up there though."

"And, there's Metal Knight." Tatsumaki inhaled, debating how she was going to put her next statement. "He's… maybe, possibly, perhaps…"

The cloud waited for her fillers to terminate patiently. "... by perchance, might be as powerful as me."  
"Oh!?" THAT got his attention. "Tied with YOU?"

The green-haired girl shook her head grudgingly in affirmation.

"That means… he's broken the _Second Limit_!" The misshapen being warped into an aurora borealis. "What was your fight like?"

"Intense and infuriating. He's a Pneuma trainer too. But his line of ability turns him intangible, and he could travel and battle by wifi and magnetic pulses. Since my evolution was with raw tactile power, you can only imagine what that was like— smacking your shadow." The esper crossed her arms while gagging. "All he did was play tag!"

"On top of that, he had robots that were as weak as mortals who haven't breached the first limit, like the other S-heroes. Weak but annoying."

"What about Drive Knight? I heard he's ranked ninth." Blast identified the only S-ranker in the Top Ten she did not address.

"He's a mere cyborg, so he could never advance into the _Limits_." She rolled her eyes. "Seriously, what kind of idiot would give away their body? Sure, you get more firepower instantly, but then you toss away the chance at Evolution. Pitiful!"

"Indeed. Living cells have potential. Metal stays the same, however malleable they are." Blast agreed with the impudent girl in a lenient manner. "Nature always follows Balance. Power comes at a cost, whether you see it immediately or not."

He looked at the levitating form, deadpanning. "In this case, you might not be so happy with whom the Hero Association assigned to be your partner to space."

"God… Please not Drive Knight." Tatsumaki bunched up her fists and punched the air lividly. "I swear I'm gonna lacerate his parts and hurl them into a supernova! He's both _arrogant_ AND _disrespectful_, not to mention that he can NEVER _cooperate!_"

The masculine hero decided against pointing out the irony in her exclamation and skipped to his preceding point. "It's not."

Fireworks shot up behind him in her mind space, the girl delighted that her unstoppable rebellion prevailed, before her laggard dual processing finally caught up with an ignored detail.

"WAIT! WAIT A FLIPPING MINUTE!" Her transparent cornea was tainted to a crimson verde. "I'm assigned a PARTNER!?"

Blast sighed and reached out with a strand of cloud to caress her hair, aiming to soothe the bratty goddess whom he had watched grow up. The unwinged pixie slapped his anatomy away, glaring profusely.

"Yes… and it have to be a cyborg too." He added more weight to the tipping equilibrium.

"NO, it does NOT! No, that's not the problem! I don't need a _partner_!" She planted her hands belligerently on her waist, while boring holes in her ex-guardian. He was almost intimidated if he was not both stronger and experienced to her callous tantrums.

But even so, the so-called secret weapon of the HA looked away as he breathed the next sentence. "It was my idea."

The psychic sprite stopped shaking with rage for the most meager pause before the remote hit play again. "Why!? Do you not trust me alone!?"

Good question. Not an easy answer. "Maki… You're not exactly…"

The hero equivalence of a God-level threat dared him to finish with an unbattering eye. The cultivator of such dialectic threat coughed. "... You're not exactly, say, methodical in spontaneous reactions."

"What? So I'm reckless!?" Tatsumaki huffed, but her aura was waning. Her motivation of a remonstrance was defused by the consensus between the conscious and unconscious that his words were… _potentially_… right."

Still, she didn't have to ADMIT to it!

Blast held his hand up to showcase the figurative microphone that was in _his _possession. "I worry about you. There are monsters up there in the _Second Limit_. I know you can take care of Dragon-Threats. What about multiple God-Levels?"

The usual aggressive aftermath to such a guiding… no, underestimating tone did not ignite. She lowered her head. _Know your bounds_, he said eighteen years ago, when she… was freed… and when she entered the _Second Limit._

"You're the strongest of Earth… with my exception. You had been for almost two decades now. But… this is a much greater ocean, the marine of stars." His voice was tender, but it did not deter her slight happiness from being cared about from devolving into defiance.

"There _are_ creatures who could create super black holes on command and hold them indefinitely. Third limit ones. I've seen and battled them. And you? You couldn't sustain one for more than a minute."

"You don't want to end up back in a machine, do you?" Blast laid down the trump card.

Suddenly, Tatsumaki's entire mental space exploded. Invisible winds ravaged the expanse, aiming to push aside all and everything, including the despicable guardian.

"NO! DON'T YOU DARE MENTION…" The female porcupine combusted with the power of a thousand suns, but she was interrupted at the highest peak of her traumatic parabola.

"NO! You listen to ME, Tatsumaki! And you pay attention!" The zenith of the Association's power clouted back in a longstanding magnificence that annihilated the submissive stance he had been taking for half of the conversation.

"Fifteen years ago, you already entered mid-Second Limit. It took you three years to go from pre-Limit to mid, and only another few months to perfect the mid-level! Then what!? Fifteen years had passed and you're still stuck here!"

"You told me to stop training…" A meek voice untypical of her struggled out before being cut off. Unbeknownst to the world, Tatsumaki was a callous character of seeming dominance, but when her might was sufficiently countered, became easily defied. Only problem: few had come even close to matching her exterior force.

"I told you to stop because you're on the verge of losing to your Duress! Of monsterfication! I killed him eighteen years ago, but your hatred is still here! You can NEVER pass into the _Third Limit_ like this! Hell, not even post-Second Limit! The crack in your Superego would be magnified by your power to become fatal, and you will lose yourself, Tatsumaki!"

"I took you to join the Hero Association three years ago for you to help people… to gain a real sense of compassion that can replace the empty ravine." His eyes grew softer. She was whimpering. "Do you like that, Maki?"

The female was sitting on the floor with her head buried in a fetal position. She didn't cry. She couldn't cry. Her shoulders shook, legs dying to run away. But this was her mind. She had nowhere to go, just like…

An agony more harrowing than overstretching her powers attacked as memories surged, threatening for your Duress to swallow her right there and now. Just then, Blast's question arrived, like an ambulance. _Did she like that?_

A warmth that was present only on some nights emerged in the raging winds. However minute, it was there, real and influential. She didn't say no.

"You need to go see space. You'll find the medicine to the scar. That's one of the main reasons why I suggested this space expedition in the first place. To open your heart." A hand rested on her shoulder. The cloud had materialized into a human figure of light. "Learn to sympathize, if not… _love._ Perhaps start with your partner."

His tone shifted. "Or are you afraid of the challenge?"

"I…"

"A truly strong one can defeat herself. A raven must inflame before reincarnating as a phoenix. It is the secret of the _Third Limit._ Or else, it just stays dust."

Like an ember disintegrating, the esper's figure disappeared from his sight, leaving her mind space. Her voice sighed from nowhere and everywhere. "Who is it?"

"What?"

"My partner. Who is it?"

"Demon Cyborg. S-Rank 17." Blast said plainly to the owner of the realm. "We chose him because humans are too vulnerable to environmental uncertainties like radiation and other unexpectant occurrences. His mechanical parts are more easily repairable. Not that he must fight. He's just there to offer appropriate analysis, like an adviser."

"Blast?"

"Yeah?"

"Fuck you."

"Thank you." He smiled. "You're not curious why it's not Drive Knight?"

"Fuck you."

"You're right, it doesn't matter to you anyways." The man turned back into a cloud before disappearing from her Pneuma.

* * *

"Hello! It's such a pleasure to finally meet you, Saitama-san." A bent, old man in an exaggerated bowl-cut held out a hand as the door opened to reveal a bald male in his late twenties.

Protruding as inward as his hand was a stretched nose. After his cornea was nearly pecked by the proboscis, the lauded hero staggered back and examined the scientist, swallowed by a lab coat a size too large.

The third most noticeable trait behind the conspicuous keratin and cartilage was a pair of enthralling grey eyes that blended polar black and white, tested by temporal labor and humanistic tempests.

Saitama peered into the mesmerizing oculus and stuck his pinky into his right ear, persistently trying at that adhesive bug. "So, who are you?"

"Professor Kuseno!" The sharp voice of his self-proclaimed disciple rang from the living room. Echoes of enthusiastic steps pursued the shout, and the unimpressed hero soon found his passionate roommate parked six inches from his arm.

"Sensai! This renowned researcher and engineer is the origin of my robotic existence! He supplied me with the replacement of my human body for ameliorated steel parts and gave me an opportunity to seek out and castrate the heinous cyborg who destroyed…"

A freezing chill swept between Saitama's legs. He placed a half-sympathetic, half-discouraging hand on his blonde avenger. "Please shorten this repeated story down to ten words or less."

Genos's vocal cords circuit-broke to sparks, energy drained into perforating his teacher with an inconceivable stare. "I… I thought it was _twenty_ words, Sensai?"

"You told it too many times." The boiled egg deadpanned and lastly took the elongated hand of the developer. "So you're Genos's easy-fix guy! Nice to see you man! C'mon in!"

"YES! Thank you, master! I must write that down!" The obsessed android whipped out a composition book from somewhere Saitama wanted not to know and began to scribbled furiously.

The forced mentor frowned at the creepy grin spated across his visage and sighed, leaving the door after the senior had entered. "You've come for Genos, right? I'll leave."

"No, actually, I've come to get a glimpse at you, mister. Genos-chan spoke of you very frequently, so I figure it would be an honor to see the teacher that he always hangs on his mouth."

"Awww! Genos, you brag about me?" Saitama beamed at his chum, delighted by the genuine opinion.

"Affirmative, Sensai! You deserve each strand of praise from both me and the public! I must convince the latter to exhibit a corresponding state of gratitude for you as myself!"

"Woah, woah, laying on a bit thick there, man!" The baldy scratched his nonexistent hair and smiled goofily. "Although, that must be pretty nice to have… like that King guy."

"Would you care to join us for lunch, Professor Kuseno?" Genos inquired.

"Of course, if the host mind not." He glanced at the other tenant of the complex. Seeing his nod of approval, Kuseno consented. "Then it would be rude to reject such a kind motion. What is on the menu?"

Saitama clicked his fingers and returned to his coupon book in search of suitable ingredients for an amateur recipe.

Genos spoke up in inspiration. "How about a hot pot to celebrate the meeting of the two most dignified men?"

"What a great suggestion!" The hero shook his head vigorously while batting an inquisitive eye at the oldest male.

Kuseno smiled. "Of course. It's been a while, but I expect a full reminder of its savor."

"I shall do the shopping, master! I will be back in thirty minutes!" The motivated cyborg dashed through the door once finished.

Saitama looked down to see the pages fluttering in consequence of the meteoric trajectory. "You forgot the coupons!"

"I'm so sorry, Sensai! My most sincere apologies!" A metal claw attached on a resilient spring flung back and grappled the precious booklet and pulled back, tearing the treasure of the apartment from its owner's palm.

Kuseno arched his back to seize a closer look at the precise cyborg locator on his cheated watch. The signal emittance was darting away at near supersonic speed, already conveniently putting hundreds of feet between them.

He turned his head, a serious glint materializing, to Saitama, who was now resting on his right arm, while his careless posture slouched sideways in boredom facing the blaring TV on an austere mat.

"Saitama-san, we must talk." He blasphemously strode between the hero-for-fun and the animated crystal. "Have Genos told you about his assigned mission yet?"

"Hey!" The unhappy camper tilted his head up at the half-coconut head, somewhat vexed at the interruption of the entertainment wavelengths. "Assigned? What?"

"He was tasked by the Hero Association to go to space."

"Woah! Space?" Saitama gasped jocularly. "When did this happen? I thought they had astronomers do that!"

"Sir, I think you meant astronauts." Kuseno coughed.

"Tomatoes potatoes." Caped Baldy waved, while a look of concern scratched his eyelids. "I wonder why he hadn't told me this."

"It's not his fault. He said he hadn't found a way to express it yet." The professor explained. "He said he must 'deduce a formula to disclose the notice in a homely yet informative monologue to avoid interrupting your homeostasis.'"

"Not a psych major here. Just a normal human being." Claimed the 'normal' human being.

"Sci-entific actually… more biological, in fact." The holder of the post doc corrected.

"Please shorten this story to twenty words or less." An impatient Saitama was already spying at the last resort of his attention span.

"No can do." Kuseno looked at his watch. "This may take up the next thirty minutes, which is how long on average he takes to shop. If it goes longer, we must think of a way to distract him further."

Not… stalkerish… at… all… Saitama reflected. How did the proverb go again? Ah, if the roof beams weren't upright, the pillars would be crooked too.

"Yesterday, he came to my lab to announce the news. After much probing, I discover that the Hero Association had promised him the information on _The cyborg_ upon his acceptance and return from the space mission." The elder began, his tone heavy.

"Hey, really!?" The younger male interrupted, understanding the context instantly after being trained by the repeated story. "That's awesome! He must feel so good! Maybe he'll invest his time into something else that's not counting my daily tongue flaps!"

Tongue flaps…

"Yes, but the catch is that he must go to space. And not the moon, but a planet at the opposite of the solar system." The emphasis came. "To a place where none of us could reach him… if he needs _help_."

"Even cooler!" Saitama jumped up. "Must be great scenery up there. And he's got years to look at the dots. Right? Space travel is slow? I'll miss him though after the first weeks."

"No, no, that's not the problem. The Association has a one-way space-folding device that is very expensive to activate which can 'propel' them into a nearby solar system, from which it will only take weeks to arrive to the destination."

Saitama blinked. "Again, normal human being here."

"In layman's terms, a teleportation machine." Kuseno identified patiently. "The problem is that… have you considered his safety once he reached the planet?"

The hairless adult blinked.

"He's across the galaxy. With no method of assistance. The Association is apparently sending only two people. Genos… he's still a very young boy. I admit it, but I have not done the best job raising him."

No, you hadn't. The images of his roommate's behaviors appeared in front of his eyes, most of which were leaning on the alerting end of the spectrum rather than comforting… even for Saitama. Like standing guard with the shampoo during his shower…

"I feel like a grandpa not able to let go of his grandson at graduation, especially since finding the evil cyborg is both of our jobs, and I cannot let the weight fall completely to him."

"He said that the Association made for him a self-repairing kit, but you don't need inductive reasoning to see how primitive that is, or how dangerous it is…" Kuseno waved his hands uncontrollably in the air. "It may be a planet of Dragon-level threats, and… Genos cannot yet handle such a being. We know this from the Deep Sea King attack."

"Hold on old man!" Saitama's features suddenly became sharp and distinct, as if inscribed with hard, edgy lines that imprinted deeply in the smooth roundness that had now been unveiled. His pupil expanded to an impressive, depthless black. "Don't play me for a fool."

"You let him go and fight monsters on Earth, even after Genos was constantly injured to near destruction." He stared straight into the master engineer's eyes. "You're overreacting quite a bit for a mission to space."

Instead of objecting his abnormal overprotection in the instance or accusing the superhuman for being too heartless, Professor Kuseno sighed. "You sensed that, huh."

"What is the true reason here?" The undefeated male questioned with a commanded vigor.

The room was silent for two minutes, until the elder's watch beeped. He looked down to find a red dot speeding back in the direction of the apartment. Fifteen minutes remaining.

"Please allow me to tell you about the Path of Evolution."

* * *

All beings in the universe, whether they originated from cells, or rocks, or metal, or silicon, or electric pulses, they were common in one essential aspect:

Limitations.

All things, no matter how powerful they were, had a limit at some point, one that could not be bypassed through simple training. It was the natural law that applied to all humans, dragons, _Gods... _

It was the cap on their development. It could not be transcended. It was what defined a species: their limitations.

However, laws were made to be transgressed. Those that were 'impossible' to overstep were only so because they were not _yet_ disobeyed.

That was not to say that the limit was a pushover. Its nullification came by exceptionally rarely, and with each case a different scenario of its own complexity, but the general term was tagged:

_**Evolution**_.

Not improvements, but… _Evolving_. Breaching human… Or generically bodily or spiritual limits for a larger expanse. A higher horizon. A sacred elevation. Breaking each maximum was like transcending to a new dimension.

If improvements were like climbing a mountain, then stepping into a new limit was like the difference between standing at the top of Mt. Everest and flying two feet above the peak. Defying logic. The becoming of an ultimate.

In fact, the basis that defined the First Limit was, indeed, logic, and its being rendered useless: Pig God's ridiculous digestive system, Zombieman's regenerative anatomy, Child Emperor's irrational smarts with engineering…

On the other hand, many S-classes were close, but yet far away. At the pinnacle of the cliff, but a ways from flying: Flashy Flash's speed, swift but still in the bounds of physics, Metal Bat's ascending power in relation to personal damage, again having a maximum that was not betrayed.

There were less than two hands' count of those who had trespassed even the _first limit _within the billions on Earth. Even in the planet's immemorial history, the count did not exceed a hundred.

Through the eons of living existence, the prehistoric beings devised two mainstream formats to steer evolution: Ichor-training and Pneuma-training.

The former was the exercising of the body, the latter of the soul. Both had its own impenetrable limits in which apertures were equally difficult to splinter.

In ancient times, both trainings took form in mass popularity. Ichor-trainers descended into what was now known as ninjas, samurai, and kung-fu masters. In fact, each and every martial art was designed to express the body to its maximum and try for the beyond.

In the Hero Association, Ichor-trainers included Silver Fang, Atomic Samurai, Pig God, Flashy Flash, Puri-Puri Prisoner…

Pneuma-trainers were more scarce, even in the primeval ages, mainly because it took much longer to see an effect than Ichor-trainers. Nevertheless, countless disciples meditated after their masters, hoping to gain the mental power that could seemingly violate logic and bless them with superhuman status that was, in a sense, 'cooler' than martial artists.

The pioneers of mind-power were not just confined to only development in raw, psychic powers. Others invested in internal focus, boosting their memory and vigilance. Even more intricate were abilities that poly-morphed oneself or took control of the essences of the universe that later graphic novels attributed as 'magic.'

In the case of the Association: Tatsumaki, obviously, and more discreetly, Metal Knight, and Child Emperor.

In totality, humans had five limits, five heavy mountains that weighed down on their backs, each and every one vaster than the last and more arduous to outmatch.

_The Five Limits._

* * *

"Okay, stop. You're blowing my mind." Saitama massaged his temples with tremendous force in effort to qualm the strain brought on by the influx of information. This was something the rogue trainer had never heard about before. Not even in games.

"Saitama-san, Genos had described you to me in great details, and I believe I've figured out the reason to your indecipherable power. This is it." Kuseno blared at him with a look that would put Alpha Centauri to shame. "It's why you cannot find pleasure to any more fights."

At such words, the unbeatable male snapped his head up at the professor with such immense speed a vortex of sonic booms materialized around his neck, but the noise was nowhere near as thunderous to his ears as the elder's sentence.

"Over the years, I've classified the threat levels. Dragon threats corresponds to the first limit, and God-level threats to the second limit. From Genos's recollection of your description of Boros, the alien invader whom you fought, he is a God-level threat."

"You destroyed him without much of a scratch, except tattered clothes." The septuagenarian deadpanned. "Does this give you a clue of your power, Saitama?"

"Moreover, if a God-Level danger is capable of humanity's destruction, what is the power that surpasses it?" He did not wait for a spoken answer to the rhetorical question. "It means a might that can destroy the entire planet. Remember that Second to Third is exponential, not linear."

"I was not sure the third limit truly existed until I've met you, sir. The records were right, at least up to the third." The engineer quickened the pace of his words in demonstration of his zeal. "Therefore, you will not find a match on Earth. It's impossible."

"Then what does it have to do with me!?" Saitama demanded, his patience wearing off after his hopes were raised and crushed.

"Let me say one more thing." The respondent checked his watch. "Did you know that the popular opinion is that cyborgs cannot Evolve?"

"And I care be-" The irked face halted. "Wait. That means Genos…"

"It is an opinion with which I do not agree. If Evolution is for all beings, not exclusive of just those made of carbon and cells, metal parts could evolve too!" There was a crazy glint to the technician's expression that took even the master of emotionless prowess aback. The same enthusiasm that labeled radical scientists as lunatics.

"I had almost lost hope until I saw _him_ twenty years ago." Kuseno paused. "The Cyborg of Conscious who had later killed Genos's family."

"Most importantly of all, he is an Ichor-trainer! Not a Pneuma-trainer! A metallic Ichor-trainer! One and only!" The old man had stood up, arms waving fervently in the air in a possessed fashion. "Not even Genos was able to copy what I saw in him! A living, evolving cyborg whose power is _not_ fixated and limited by its parts but is emanated from a constantly growing integral!"

"Saitama-san! Do you realize what this means?"

Saitama stared dumbfoundedly. "...That it is important?"

"Exceedingly." Kuseno's laser eyes pierced. "I must not have Genos come into contact with him. Genos wants him dead. I cannot allow that. I must have him to study his conscious and evolution. It's the only opening to a brand new world."

"A world where humans can breach the Limits through technological innovation. My ultimate dream." He concluded.

"So you purposefully kept him away? How long had this been going on for?" Saitama breathed.

"Years, albeit Genos is no match for him anyways. His mindless pursuit would lead to his own annihilation."

"Haven't you thought about what this meant to _him_? You're practically hiding the murderers of his family away from him!"

"I have not. I am keeping him safe!" Kuseno retorted sharply. "Think about what he would do otherwise! He would never ask for help, not even from you. He could not evolve into the First Limit, and I do not know how to make him as powerful… until I have my hands on the Conscious Cyborg who could! And it is the one thing Genos wishes to kill! Don't you see the paradox here!?"

"I'll squash it for him." Saitama declared plainly.

"Then I will guarantee that he will hate you forever." Kuseno stared into his eyes, the eyes of the male who could squish even a million of his knowledgeable bodies combined. "Because you took the one opportunity to free his heart away from him."

"Then what the hell is the solution!?" The newly-coined Third-Limiter snapped, the last straw landing on the camel's back.

"Catch the cyborg, analyze his parts, build an evolved system for Genos, and have him find his salvation in a true battle." The professor announced the long sequence of complexity that had been on his mind for years. "Meanwhile, humanity benefits from a systematic way of Evolution."

"I'll catch him for you, if this is your request." Saitama offered.

"If only it was this simple." The post doc shook his head. "I do not have his location."

The bald man took a deep breath. "Then what the… is the point of this conversation?"

"I need you to go to space… in place of Genos."

The TV shut off, the off-button slammed by Saitama's dropped jaw. He was amazed… no, astonished at the insensible ambition. "What? Say again?"

"I know this sounds very improper, but, please, hear me out." Professor Kuseno persisted. "It is for both yours and Genos's sake."

"Okay, you're going to give me the safety crap, right? And there's your sake too." Saitama fixed his jaw and sat up. "What's mine? You're asking me to leave MY home PLANET for some giant rock at the other end of this world!"

"Simple. Like I said, it's what you want the most." The professor blew smoothly. The sniper was set. "There are Three-Limiters up there, ones that could pull you into a good fight. Multiple fights. Fights you're looking for."

The bullet hit the mark. Saitama's jaw plummeted down again, inches from the same remote. Lethal glares of frenziness plasmarized the very atoms in the air with a passion that he had not exhibited for two years now. A dignified aura befitting of a Third Limit royalty, not a simplistic egghead, tore invisibly through the walls, the ground, the electricity, the sky of City Z.

"One… one _good_ fight!? A truly _serious _fight?" The undefeated hero's voice shook. If it resonated with the tectonic plates, a continental earthquake would immediately form. He had forgone the control over his powers, which were now on full blast.

The capability to destroy an entire _planet…_

"Yes. Maybe even something that can defeat you." The professor's morphemes rang in his ears, distant yet deafening. "So, what do you say?"

Saitama froze. The memory of the grocery stores, the coupons, Hero Association, Genos, mangas, the park he ran the daily ten kilometers around, the _Earth_ itself soared through his mind. The nostalgia shouted at him to stay.

Then, _then_, an unexpected indigo face materialized. It was much like a human face, but it had only one edgy, trapezoidal eye that stamped the forehead, like a cyclops. Boros… that was his name.

_I've traveled the galaxies to meet you. The prophecy says, here is where I can find someone who could be my match! FIGHT ME!_

_Ok, he answered._

Saitama's eyes snapped open. There was someone in the past, once living and breathing, who crossed the universe to seek an opponent. To seek a loss. To seek an ultimate combat of exhilaration!

In that case, was his hunger any less?

"I'll go."

* * *

**A/N: Feedback please! My power structure will be surrounding the Five Limits. Hail the fearsome spaceship of Tatsutama!**


	2. Cha 2- Space or Bust

**Standard Disclaimer: Yep, I have One Punch Man ownership just like Tatsumaki has a benevolent temper.**

**A/N: I want to give an enormous thank-you to the immense support y'all are showing me through the reviews, or by following or favorite-ing me! It shows me that my time here is not in vain, and I hope we will continue on this transcending journey together!**

**In addition, I really want to respond to the guest reviews, but unfortunately, I can only reply to reviews that are logged in (Ughhh Fanfiction!). Please sign in if you have a question for me and I will be swift in getting back to you!**

**In addition, I would like to give a shout-out to Eerie Enigma's **_**Two Odd Halves**_**. It was reading his work when I found potential in the Tatsutama shipping and inspired my decision to publish a OPM fanfic! Please go check out his work! It is among the best Fanfiction has to offer!**

**And now, allow the curtains to rise for… Chapter 2!**

* * *

**Cha. 2- Space or Bust**

**Five Weeks Later**

A camouflage Black Hawk helicopter descended accurately on the chopper pad at the top of Factory Q. The restrained spot was outlined by a series of contraptions, ranging from solar panels to radars, to a tall wire that extended out higher than the building itself.

Out of the aircraft neatly stepped a flock of men and women, each defined by their own significant traits. However, they all exhibited the same glint of penetration in their eyes and an aura of competence.

The last to pace out to the roof was Agoni, dressed casually in a T-shirt and khaki pants. Even without the formal wear, the Hero Association executives still manifest an air of potency bestowed into those of high positions.

They waited patiently, and not for long. A hole opened in the seamless construction of the crowded surface in a blatantly bare location. An android bot, smaller than from the Metal Knight's last used in the meeting, walked up a temporary staircase and greeted them.

"Thank you for coming. Please follow me."

A few of the chairmen frowned, displeased that the S-ranker was still using a machine as his substitute even at his doorstep. Agoni's face was of an unreadable expression. He took the lead in the expedition, the rest trailing half a step behind purposefully.

While the directors chatted on quietly in the back, the boss and the robot made no conversation. They strode briskly and soon arrived at a large conference room at the end of the hall.

Like a transformer, the mechanoid disassembled itself into a large hand, its wrist sticking into the ground supported by a makeshift shaft, pulling the doors open.

Three people were already sitting at the front of the table. Agoni met their eyes. Bofoi ― Metal Knight―, Child Emperor, and… Blast. Or at least, it should be him. In his place was a translucent cloud of humanoid shape, just like every single time they met in the past. Behind them, the expansive screen was already lit up by a projector, fancily in detailed pixels.

"Hello, Blast, Metal Knight, Child Emperor." Agoni offered a verbal acknowledge on behalf of the Association staff. He pulled a card out from his pocket and laid it in front of the tech genius. "Here's the payment."

Bofoi was supposedly an old man, but his facial features lacked much of the evidence of age found commonly in the exterior of his generation. For a man of no powers, Agoni mused, he had been preserved quite well… partly probably because of the bank he had been making off of the HA.

His suit was white. Not a pure white, but rather stained with lines of grey, as if washed too frequently, much like his hair. At first look, there was really nothing eye-catching about the S-ranker, but decades of rolling in market and politics had taught the Association head otherwise.

The master engineer gave the card a nonchalant look and deposited it into his breast pocket, as if it was all just a mandatory process of society with no true underlying value. A show, that was all.

"I hope the flight gave you a good look at the rocket site." He replied, with an eternal serenity that swallowed all. "All is finished and double-checked, unlike our last tour. Weather is suitable on Wednesday."

"Same here." Child Emperor took over the microphone. "The stacks of post-landing procedures are complete, from oxygen generation to energy revitalization. The compressed machinery in support of the due processes is tested and packed as well."

The screen behind them shifted to an overhead view of the assembly site, the camera attached most likely to a drone or another soaring at cloud level. Even so, the view was not enough to cover the entirety of the factory. It was Metal Knight's largest afterall, built across the outskirts of City Q.

Hell, the factory itself was the size of half of City Q. No wonder no monsters above Threat Demon was ever reported here.

There were rumors― yes, even the Association had not confirmed its accuracy― that the entirety of the industrial masterpiece could be transfigured into a giant battleship that could pummel even Dragon threats. Like Whac-a-mole.

The spacecraft site took up more than a tenth of the spacious grounds, and the prepared rocket extended over a thousand feet into the sky. Eight bulky thrusters patterned the bottom of the colossus, with three oversized fins on the size with a grace that betrayed their size.

Anywhere else, there would be no secrecy to this mission, which was valued intently by the Association. Normal space launches tended to capture the attention of the entire public, but the loss of two S-Rank heroes for years would cause an uproar unbeneficial for anyone but the mysterious beings.

But here, the levels of security prevented any leaks, especially since the factory was automated by purely artificial if criminal organization got word of it, there would be no chance of a breakthrough.

Plus, Metal Knight had on a cryptic magnetic field that distorted signal detection, while a space launch under his name would be much less impactful than one under the HA's.

Shuttles hurried across the port like ants, and helicopters and zeppelins were only slightly bigger grasshoppers next to the abnormally large colonizer.

Normal rockets did not exceed three hundred feet. In fact, there was not even the technology for a rocket over five hundred. A thousand feet was not just doubling the resources. It was a range of engineering in a whole other dimension. Only Metal Knight.

Child Emperor caught the looks on some of the stunned faces of the new participants, apparently also skilled in the field. He chuckled internally. When _he_ first saw the anomaly, it took him just a week to _understand _the physics behind it.

He flashed a glance over at Blast's illusion. There was no doubt he was the top of mankind's capability, but Metal Knight was the genius the world was blessed. Bofoi was his role model, single-handedly advancing the sciences by at least a century.

The camera panned to a closer look at the more intricate designs, though none as momentous as the initial sight of the finally completely pioneer. Gasps choked out nevertheless, frequently.

After a cycle of the virtual tour was finished, Blast knocked on the table twice, instantly commanding the attention of the room. "My teleporter is wired in the low Earth orbit. Once the rocket breaks out of the thermosphere, I'll activate the portal for transportation."

Sekingar, at Agoni's right, thrust a hand forward. "May I take a scan of the final draft of the launch mechanism?"

Child Emperor nodded and flicked a flashdrive over. The executive took it in his palm and glared down with a beaming dazzle from his cold right prosthetic eye. A wave of red repainted the white gizmo, and his head bobbled in seeming contentment.

Something, of suspicion or of praise, flickered in where Blast's pupils would be, but none could tell through the mysterious fog. A few minutes later, Sekingar frowned and glanced up. "I thought last time we established that conventional titanium plates were too malleable for the wormhole mode. Are you changing the setting?"

"No." Blast, the owner of the cryptic device responded emotionlessly. "There's no need."

"According to my calculations…"

"There's no need." He repeated in the same volume, but it successfully shut the executive up. A compressed atmosphere descended.

Agoni chuckled, forcefully stabbing through the density. "You sure have a lot of faith in the Tornado of Terror's psychic."

"That and the fact that it's trans-galactic travel. Superstar mode is too weak. I'm shortening light millennium into a few minutes of spatial disorientation. If it wasn't for your math," Blast pointed at Sekingar, "I would've turned it to ultraspace mode."

"You know that would displace an unreasonable magnitude of strain on the spacecraft. What's the risk of the wormhole tunnel breaking? One in a million?" Seginkar met the Top-Ranker's hazed gaze in a methodical confidence, with a speck of something else mixed in. "We could make much more accurate predictions if you just let us take a look at the teleporter, Blast. Easy jobs for Metal Knight and Child Emperor too. It was your idea after all."

Agoni gave his right-hand man a glimpse, silently recognizing the strange, subtle aggression he harbored for the built male. Blast delivered a similarly meaningful look, but he neglected to reply. He had his reasons, and the privilege to not share them. The two mentioned heroes were expressionless.

"Anything else?" The apex of the food chain asked lightly. Sekingar said nothing. "Are our astronauts ready?"

"They finished the training three days ago." Agoni stated, while releasing the pressure of his hand on Sekingar's leg under the table. "It is set then? Take off in three days?"

* * *

The TV was blaring in the living room, but Tatsumaki was sparing just a fringe of her massive psychic to it. Instead, she was trained on the clock hanging on top of the electronic device.

Black clock, of course.

As the second hand accurately ticked back to the top, joining the minute and hour hand, the esper cut off her psionic supply to the TV, which went blank. Her eyes snapped to the door.

_One. Two. Three…_

A minute passed, and then four more. Tatsumaki's eyes dazzled with a dark green. She hated it when she was late! She always did it, since childhood, and then she would feed her some fatuous excuse with the mistaken impression that it would aid the situation or that she had any interest in the subject of her justification.

It was like with the many other things the older sister tried to preach, and the younger failed to absorb. It had gotten worse, much worse, after she turned eighteen, apparently now "gaining independence" and "not having to be babysitted anymore."

Tatsumaki snorted at the thought of the proclaimed statement. Her feet scrubbed against the raven carpet, becoming increasingly annoyed at the tardiness as the ticks sailed by.

Finally, the door slammed open as the minute hand angled itself to the tenth mark, while repetitively poking at the S-Ranker's OCD.

Not gifting the entering figure even a side glance, the petite sister crossed her legs, the slitted fabric of her dresses fluttering in an adhesion of black and white. "You're late."

A huff came from her left, followed by a half-hearted apology. "Sorry. I was helping Lily with a few staff movements. I wanted her to…"

"You're late. Again." Tatsumaki reiterated, her attention already dissipating at the mentioning of the imbeciles in her sister's useless gang. What did she call it? The B-... whatever. A gathering of useless weaklings who wanted to exploit Fubuki's psychic to rank up.

She could not understand how her sister could tolerate them. If she was to be stuck with those B trash for more than half an hour, there better be an outhouse somewhere near.

Fubuki's eyes narrowed, staring back at her sibling with an upset glint. Was there really no way for them to communicate _normally _face to face? Even the invitation for her to come over was more mellow than the current atmosphere.

She took a breath. If the older one wouldn't take the responsibility of being mature, she would! Just this once, she'll overlook it, since whatever it was must be important enough for her to call her over to chat.

"What is it? Why am I here?" She levitated a chair from the dining room over across from the elder female. Furniture for guests was uncalled for in the apartment, since the Tornado of Terror never expected any intruders anyway.

Tatsumaki finally faced her and eyed the more sprouted of the two up and down, trying to cover up the hesitation in her determination. "I'm going to space."

"Okay?" Fubuki blinked. "You go out of the stratosphere on a daily basis."

"Ughhh! I mean going to deep space. Like to the other end of the galaxy."

Fubuki's pupils dilated. It took her a minute for the information to fully sink in. When it did, she hopped into the air, shocked. "What!? Wait! For how long?"

Tatsumaki gave her a curious look. She thought for sure her baby sister would cheer and throw a party at the news… maybe just wait longer?

"I don't know. Blast said it was for a few years."

"Bl… He's back!?" Fubuki cried, but there was no hint of delight. Instead, it was void… no― it was… loathing.

He was… HE was why she became like this! Ever since she came back with him in her life, she turned all of a sudden cold and distant, devolving into the most condescending and irksome being whom she struggled to identify as consanguineous.

"Mmhmm. I asked him to watch over you when I'm away. So, you will listen to him without…"

"HELL!? No! I'm not a kid anymore, Sis! What the f-"

"You will NOT interrupt me!" Tatsumaki's dainty figure rocketed below the ceiling and flew inches from her face, noses nearly touching. Her eyes rippled with a blaring outrage, building since noon. "You will listen to him without the disobedience that you constantly show me! You shall _not_ embarrass the both of us."

Fubuki gritted her teeth and met the sclera of the howling storm who could mutilate her a million times over. "I said NO!"

Instantly, the younger sister found her skin-tight protective layer of blue popping and replaced with a restrictive green that was squeezing her harshly.

"What is your problem!?" Tatsumaki growled in a sunken voice after forcing a few breathes into her lungs to avoid crushing her sister like a can. "Why do you never cooperate?"

Fubuki's eyes burned with a fury that pushed apart the green sheath on her cornea. "Maybe if you LISTEN to me, you won't ask me that!"

The younger sister felt a abruptly tightened restraint that forced the fumes out of her lungs. Her veins were tingling with a flame that magnified into bubbles of lava in the process of incinerating her organs. She didn't know if it was from herself or the demon before her.

How much she wished she was more powerful than her! If she could, Fubuki thought as she pierced through the vibrant viridescence, she would flip her over and teach the true brat of the two a memorable lesson she would never forget.

"_You_ listen! Open your damn ears and listen for once!" Tatsumaki shouted. "When I'm gone, don't you dare go challenge the Upper Demon level monsters or Dragon levels. Blast doesn't have the telepathic link we share, so no one can come when you get yourself killed!"

"And stop messing with your puny, foolish cliche! They're a bunch of worms who could never help you! If you want to get strong, fight in the big pool! Advance to the A-class! Get it through your thick skull, Jigoku no Fubuki!"

Tears rolled down the younger sibling's cheeks. She wanted to stuff her palms into her ears and scream, but she couldn't move a single muscle. Seconds later, her face was streaked with salt-laced evidence of evaporation.

Tatsumaki's eyes softened just a fraction at her sister's reaction. Feeling the leftover strand of humanity within her quiver, she sighed and let go of the psychokinesis.

One look at the younger female's defiant face told the entire story. She didn't register it. The Second Limiter's expression decayed into a shroud of disappointment. "I'm leaving Wednesday."

A silence barraged the room. Not a creak of the fingers, not a sobbing of the pained.

"That's it."

A blue sparklebolted out the door. Tatsumaki rested her head in her arm. A while later, she strode over to the entrance to lock the hatch. Continuing her walk, she lingered over to the kitchen, where she had, miraculously, prepared lunch herself.

Lunch for two.

Shaking her head, she levitated the bowls over to the sink and dropped them. But before gravity could take its course, a wispy breeze glided across the completely encapsulated room, caressing her curls and stopping the tracks of the food dead in their descent.

"Wasting food is bad. I know people in Alderaan who are starving." An unannounced voice resonated through the air.

Tatsumaki tensed, but the familiar psychic mark immediately restored her to tranquility. Well, as much tranquility as one could get in a terminator compressed into the body of a leprechaun.

"Where the hell is Alderaan?" Tatsumaki spat and took back control of the food, which trailed her as she retraced her steps back to the living room, where an acquainted cloud sat.

"Do you really care?" He already had a pair of chopsticks in his hands.

The dishes clanked as they positioned themselves on the tiny tea table. The green sprite shrugged. "Absolutely not."

* * *

Blast flickered and began to condense. His cloud-form took on a colorful hue, with features becoming gradually definitive. His stripped muscles popped out, much too obviously for a Pneuma-trainer, along with a wide shoulder and mighty chest that stored the beating heart of ambition and dreams of an alpha male.

His hair was short and neatly combed, without any of the fancy designs that today's youth popularized, for some reason. Despicable countercultures, she deemed them.

However, his face was masked with an eerie spell. Not concealed, because she could see it without distortion. The ominous phenomenon was that Tatsumaki could perceive every detail of his countenance, down to the last hair, but she could never describe it… or retain it.

At first look, the face was a plain bagel. But, the more she concentrated, the more she felt as if magic and stars were pouring out of his cells. He turned to the mystic Hercules only available in mythology, before a black hole started pulling on her wits.

When she looked away, all memory of his elements disappear, replaced by only the idea labeled as "Blast."

The Top S-Ranker dug his utensils into a plate of mashed potatoes and brought it to his mouth. Tatsumaki watched him… hopefully?

Blast stuffed the meal through his teeth and chewed.

_One. Two…_

*PFtttt! Mashed potatoes went across the room from the spit-take, before being swept out an opened window by a mysterious breeze. Blast looked up to find his host's face darkening into the slums of City Z.

He wiped a drop of farcical sweat off his face. He was glad he had practice at least _some_ Ichor techniques for fun. Or else, that mouthful of poison could have been a calamity.

He doubled coughed, before speaking up. "Maki, I think we should order Chinese."

"What about not wasting food, hypocrite?" She retorted sharply, irritation brewing back up.

"This isn't food. This is rat…" Blast blurted, before a glimpse of malice in her eyes made him retract his assertion. "...I mean, I tried to swallow it! It got past the pharynx this time! At least I'm the only one who dares to… venture where no man had dared."

"You're not making it better." Tatsumaki deadpanned and tossed over her phone. "Order for me too. Just say 'standard delivery.'"

"Not much use for this little thing in a few days." He twirled the device in his palm. Black, as always.

"Yeah. I'm all done packing. There's not much." Tatsumaki's eyes dimmed for the barest intensity, as the sun by a planet in its orbit, however unnoticeably. "Anyways… umm… I mean to ask you for a favor."

Blast was taken aback, almost dropping the communication gadget. "Why the sudden formality?"

"It's about Fubuki." The esper sighed, blowing out invisible smoke as she spoke. "You saw everything, right?"

"I came at around half, but I saw it was… heated."

"Well, what do you think? Can you take care of her while I'm gone? I know it's a terrible burden. Trust me, I freaking know. The kid loves getting herself tied up into situations she couldn't handle. I swear, she could have died ten times this month if I wasn't watching. For heaven's sake, she tried to tackle a Dragon monster last week!"

Blast was quiet for half a minute before replying. "I knew you were going to ask me this. You know she hates me, right? She thinks I've corrupted you."

"Immaturity." The older sister shook her head. "A terrible foundation for her greedy lust for power."

The male S-Ranker paused and punctured her with his eyes. He focused so hard she could nearly memorize the lines of his frown. "You know, I worry the same thing about you."

Tatsumaki grimaced, resisting the temptation to slap him. "Immaturity?"

"Don't deny it."

"I took care of the entire Alphabet when you were gone! There were no major faults until that garbage ship came!" The second ranked hero protested. "You were the one who said that others' perceptions should never define you! Maturity lies in your own heart!"

"Does your heart recognize your maturity?" Blast tossed the question back. "Do you believe you are mature?"

Tatsumaki said nothing. There was no point in lying to her former guardian. He knew her too well. It would be as difficult as cheating herself.

"That has always been your problem, Maki. Your _psyche_. I've said this a thousand times. Morals, values, aspirations, even desires, they all change with the situation and culture. Impermanent! Only your psyche remains constant. It's your attitude toward the world. How you shall act in a situation. How you want to lead your life!"

His voice rang louder and louder, breaching the confines of walls. "In your reincarnation, you _did_ identify your attitude! You _did_ discover your psyche! You _did_ find what you want to be! But you backed away from it! You're denying YOURSELF! There is a RAVINE! Ravine! A fracture in your psyche, in your heart, Senritsu no Tatsumaki!"

"I had guessed that it was because of what happened eighteen years ago. But, truly, I don't know. Fear? Anger? Chagrin? Disappointment? After all, I'm not you. The only one who could mend the cleft is you yourself, and apparently, Earth ain't the place to do it."

"I asked you to stop training because of the Ravine. Your psychic can't exceed a level where your actions could become so destructive to the point of no return. To commit a crime against yourself that you could never forgive because you were too blinded by the situation while wielding unchecked power." Blast's tone grew softer. "What if, what if… you lost control and killed your sister?"

"I would NEVER!" Tatsumaki roared, but Blast held up a hand.

"All I'm saying is, when your mind become so clouted to conduct something like such, it will crystallize to an irremovable stain on your psyche. Your Ravine then could never close, which is why I stopped your training. It's what separates a monster from an intelligent being."

"I'm telling you this again because it's my last chance for years. Even I cannot manage intergalactic travel without a heavy price. When you get to New Earth, don't train. Do NOT train."

"Earth is not a good environment for you. Two decades have passed now. Do you feel yourself getting better?" Blast noticed the uncertain expression and nodded. "No, as I suspected. Your psychic never grew. It may seem like you're recovering, but it's all an illusion."

"You have your psyche. All you need to do is to heal your Ravine. As it heals, your power will automatically rise with it. After all, the eighteen years of sitting here, though it may seem like it, are not for naught."

* * *

Half of City Z was an abandoned torrent of sludge. "The Lost City," as many called it. The northern side was uninhabitable by anything, besides those who lurked in the shadows. Even the moonlight faded to an caliginous beam that was absorbed by the cracked concrete on the barren streets.

One large tower extended from the ground up. It was not overly elevated, being only eight stories, but there was a grandiose tone to the only building that still remained lit in the ghetto of fiends― like flame and moths.

In the illuminated apartment room, there appeared two silhouettes, one lying on the floor, and one bent over the table, inspecting something. The clock on the table read: 2:00 a.m., Wed.

Saitama, on his futon, opened one eyelid and peeked over, careful not to make even the single noise that could alert his roommate.

Genos had his back to him, apparently reading something by the candle. Experience had the bald hero known that it was the journal of observation the cyborg kept on him.

Perfect. He could see the power-off port right there. A wave of the hand, and the key would disconnect his conscious on the spot.

Saitama sighed internally. It had been days since he settled on the decision, but he was still somewhat reproachful to Kuseno's plan. But, the lechery for an opponent sunk in, which fortified his stance immediately.

He lifted his hand out of his mattress. A clear crack of the bone echoed in the tenement as deafening as thunder. Genos's head was turning, and, on reflex, Saitama lunged forward and jammed the key into its designated orifice.

Before the synthetic droid could make an one-eighty, red lights pulsed from the opening and sprawled across his steel plates, like a million hairline fractures.

Genos's construct froze, before all sensors shut off simultaneously. His head rotated completely around, but there was none of the familiar yellow haze within the two holes.

Saitama placed a hand on his immobilized friend. "Sorry."

Doors opened and closed. The only light in the slums of Z failed. A trail of dust spewed up across the street. A second later, it was past the barbed wire that was the City borders.

Scenery passed behind the Third-Limiter at Machs above supersonic. Only a few minutes spun by before he arrived at the outskirts City Q. A giant lab came zooming into view.

Only then did he started to slow. As Saitama dropped below sonic, the shockwave threatened to catch up to him. The caped man turned with an unimpressed look and lashed out a laxed punch with the hand not grasping the unconscious Genos.

*POP! The attack burst the overwhelming noise like a bubble, dissipating the energy that would have otherwise produced a pandemonium boisterous enough to wake City Q in its totality.

A camera at the entrance of the lab twinkled, before the door was pushed open automatically. Dazzling lights streamed out, and Saitama stepped nonchalantly into the aether.

A few dead ends later, he found Kuseno at a broad room, sitting beside a fancy machine devoted to the reproduction of wires. It was almost like a surgical platform, with a blank spot in the middle. Saitama carefully laid his roommate on a flat desk which was also the bed for a complex blueprint.

"Great place you have here! Do I get a discount?" Saitama plopped down on a chair across from the master engineer.

Kuseno blinked. "It's not for sale."

"Awww, too bad. Maybe when I get back." He waved his hand in an undignified manner and digressed. "Sooo… I carried Genos here. Do you have the thingamajig?"

"Yes, I do have the facial manipulator and voice changer." Kuseno stood and motioned Saitama to follow him. "But first, let's connect Genos to the charging station."

Together, the two schemers lifted the cyborg onto the monstrous technology that Kuseno was leaning against, looking as if a beast devouring the nineteen-year-old.

Kuseno gestured and trudged to the end of the room and into yet another hallway. Few steps later, they entered a much smaller and modest office room. A desk slouched at the corners, a few pictures on the wall, along with a framed certificate of graduation.

"I apologize for the disorganization, Saitama-san. I don't tend to get visitors."

"I'm not much tidier than you, old man." Saitama's eyes glanced across the fabricated diploma, sparkling with a hint of amazement. "MIT? Sharp place. No one got in there when I was in school."

He looked back at the inventor and detected that his face blackened instinctively. Saitama frowned. "What? What's the matter? You look down."

Dr. Kuseno suspired ambivalently. "Long story. I used to be the dean of the engineering department there."

"Oh word!? That's, like, freaking smart as hell, right?"

"Smart? Sure. At the end, it was all for null." Kuseno shook his head. His grey pupils swayed under the light into a dusky violet, covered by his eyelids.

"What? Why? Oh yeah, shouldn't you be at the university then?"

"Too long to tell." Kuseno slanted his head aside and delved his stare into the ebony wood composing of his crooked desk.

Saitama shifted in the awkward silence. Scratching his chin, he took ahold of his cape and started to fold it into triangular patterns.

"Well, since you want to know so much, I'll tell you the brief history." Kuseno began after a sentimental stop. "It was twenty years ago. Back then, I was working on this magnificent engineering feat that would ripen into the beacon of STEM if successful: the creation of an ever-potent machine that could rival today's S-class might."

"Wait. So making an S-class hero?" Saitama repeated his interpretation. "Really? Did it happen?"

An enduring wait ensued. The human powerhouse assumed the answer. "Awww… sorry."

"No, it was accomplished perfectly. In fact, it was the talk of the decade. The milestone in engineering development."

Saitama lifted his head in puzzlement. "Then why the sour face?"

"I had a partner. An assistant to my work. He was the son of the president of the institute." An agonizing streak rippled across his expression, leftover from the past. "They teamed up to publish my research. I never got credit for anything."

"Back then, I was still young. Young and without many friends. I had dumped all my time into my impossible goal. There's no one by my side to support my words. The world believed my boss."

"Isn't there a way to prove them wrong? Like, building the robot again?"

"No, advanced research was not like that, Saitama-san." Kuseno turned his head toward the certificate on the wall. "Once the procedure is read and understood, it could be mass produced… or at least with the appropriate materials… which I didn't have anymore."

"And he, Mr. President, he comprehended everything. Even now, he is still the smartest man I know. Smartest and most enigmatic."

"I was young then. I tried to fight the system, the depraved system of politics and unspoken traditions." Pause. "I lost. Lost my professorship. Lost my place in science."

"I hung this diploma up two decades ago. Each day, it reminds me of the reprobates who stole everything. It reminds me that my quest for vengeance shall not cease with time." Kuseno stared at Saitama. "They took my S-class research. In return, I will come up with something ten times more enthralling. The technology to breach the First Limit!"

"Wow… dude, I'm so sorry…" The bald hero didn't know what to say, but that it was an inappropriate time to make one of his commonly facetious declarations.

"No, I should be apologizing in bothering you with my grievances." Kuseno extracted a box from under his desk. "Here's what you need for tomor… well, today."

Saitama took it from his hands and pulled out a mask and a bodysuit, painted over and encarved with steel plates. At the inner flap of the mask right near the mouth was a mounted voice changer.

"This should do it." Kuseno nodded. "Here, I'll help you put it on."

Outside, Genos lied stiffly on the charging post. An hour later, a second Genos appeared.

* * *

It was barely the break of dawn when crowds of Association staff flooded Factory Q. Agoni had requested, to Metal Knight's dismay, that each of his robot stations was to be paired with at least one human counterpart, thus increasing the population of the site by a few hundred.

A discreet team of A-Class heroes and five additional S-classes diffused throughout the workplace, on top of Bofoi, Child Emperor, and Blast. Joined were Bang, Atomic Samurai, King, Pig God, and Metal Bat.

Blast was standing right beside the the base of mammoth rocket, where the ignition from the soon liftoff would vaporize about everyone else but him.

An ostentatious green lacerated the sky in a zipline for the manufactory, challenging the intensity of any blocking sun rays. As she neared, her trajectory adjusted to a descending comet that slammed past the first doors.

Metal Knight had fun disarming the security alarm.

A very crabby Tatsumaki, due to her early morning and failure of coffee stores to open at this ungodly hour, was led through more doors of the maze which she reserved no patience for.

In the eyes of the quivering Association staffs, she mounted the sky again, beeline made straight for the enormous spacecraft at the center.

Amidst her flight, a twister of red and orange lights germinated from the ground and entangled her in a forceful hold that hauled her down tellingly.

"HEY!" She puffed out materializing green spikes like a jeopardized porcupine. They did _not _protrude the barrier. Feeling her feet contact with the ground, Tatsumaki struggled to regain balance.

Blast's cloud form came into her eyes, with a cup of mocha extended. "Morning, Princess Havoc."

The abrasive esper huffed and snatched the beverage over. "When do I board?"

"Until you get dressed."

"I am dressed, nitwit!" Tatsumaki crossed her arms.

Blast scanned unconvincingly her standard black outfit, while recognizing the extra grouchiness. "You know what, sure. The pressure gradient is nothing for you. Breakfast?"

She frowned. "No. The cafeteria is probably filled with idiots, like the HQ's always is."

"Of course you will say that." The Top S-ranker revealed a paper bag he had been keeping out of sight from behind his back. "Take it. You know you'll be grumpy for the entire day otherwise."

"This better not be peanut butter and jelly." Tatsumaki deadpanned. A wrapped PB&J and carton of milk levitated.

Blast coughed. "Hey, if I actually made bacon and eggs, will you dare to eat it?"

The female's right eye twitched. She hadn't forgotten who was the teacher of her… magnificently charming culinary skills. "Good point."

On the other hand, the second astronaut arrived in a much humbler fashion― in a red and black jeep.

It screeched to a stop at the already repaired front door, guarded by an A-ranked hero and a robot the size of a champion wrestler. The driver's door opened, and the figure of a cyborg appeared.

The A-ranked hero bowed. "Good morning, Mr. Genos. I'm Blue Fire. May I take your keys? We will deposit it at the Factory parking lot for your return."

"No. Need." His mechanical partner interrupted and wobbled over to the jeep, lifting it in his palm. "Thank. You."

"Than… Uhhhmm… Deep gratitude." The disguised hero choked uncomfortably. Now, he was somewhat glad of Genos's continuous rants all the time. For better or worse, his syntax was inscribed in the Caped Baldy's mind.

The giant bot lifted the jeep through the huge extensive front and made a left, deserting Blue Fire at his guard position. A tiny toy car spun from nowhere and hopped once in front of Saitama, motioning him to come with.

"Sure…" He raised a hand to scratched his head, before the reminder of the wig had him retracting the habit.

The design of the factory was a mix of industrial and technological, vertically combining the integration of raw material manufacturing and advanced biological synthesis.

Around some corners, there was an expansive field for assembly, while others were cramped, bulky shorties, like City Y's, home to the standard steel production, and yet there were labs and skyscrapers more state-of-the-art than City A.

Within seconds, Saitama was lost. Even without his severe navigational deficiency, any normal person would be rendered senseless in the current of architectural finesse.

Eventually, he followed the toy car to a domed building. A signal on its back lit up: Chow Hall.

Saitama tilted his head. Who was Chow? Nonetheless, he entered, while the bot waltzed away.

_Apparently, 'Chow' must be a good cook, because the building he had walked into was a large dining room_, he thought. His belly rumbled, and the hero's eyes swaggered to the front of the room, where a cafeteria-style meal line was set up.

_Waffles and sausage. Don't mind if I do. Free food is better than any discount._ Saitama joined the short line to the delicacies. Most people were already sitting at tables, chomping.

Suddenly, a hand fell on his shoulder. A baritone voice with the hints of age rang. "Genos-san. I didn't know cyborgs need to eat!"

Saitama spun, startled. Bang's face came into sight. The dojo master smiled. "I didn't mean to alert you, lad. I apologize. I was just curious because you didn't eat much at my hot pot invitation last time. Was it just not to taste?"

"No problem. I…" How did it go again? "Any organic materials can be combusted into conservative energy, Ba- Silver Fang. Additionally, I infer taking food would be… an appropriate social gesture… By the way, your hot pot was amazing."

Saitama gagged slightly as he finished. The scratchy words rubbed against his throat like rust. He could not imagine how Genos could talk like this. Probably because of that esophagus of brass.

"Ahhh, I see! Have you found a table yet?" Bang winked. "For your 'social gestures'?"

"Negative." Saitama found himself quickly at the head of the line and snatched a couple of waffles. A few puff of whip cream and honey dips later, he was ready to follow the elder with his much simpler syrup pancakes.

The Third S-Ranker guided him to his table, already occupied by a series of heroes. Opposite from Bang was a traditional-looking man with hands folded, plate already clean. A signature katana hung across his back. Atomic Samurai.

Next to him was a gigantic slab of meat that could put any sumo wrestler to shame. He was too busy stuffing food into his mouth to spare Saitama even a side glance. Pig God.

King, the titled strongest man on Earth, was dicing a sausage mannerously, quite unexpected for his dominating name. He waved at Saitama. "Bonjour!"

"Apologies. I was not programmed with Spanish" The recipient affirmed, sitting down.

"You're kidding, right?" King's hand froze. The S-ranked table turned and stared at him.

Saitama blinked. What was the matter?

A booming voice came from behind. "See! I'm not the only one who thought so!"

Metal Bat popped down next to Saitama while leaning his namesake bat against the table. Atomic Samurai took his trademark stalk of grass out of his mouth and smirked. "Not at your sister's recital?"

"Not digging your apprentices out of Sweet Mask's ass?" The gangster spat and bent to work on his food.

The sword master scowled. Recently, his three students, who were Ranked two, three, and four in A Class were challenging the A gatekeeper nonstop, hoping to tire him by cycling through repeatedly.

That backfired… painfully.

They were still lying in the HA infirmary now. Hence, the Association forced Sweet Mask to take their place today guarding Factory Q.

Bang managed to diffuse the situation with a few of his terrible dad-jokes. Silently sighing, he noticed how, yet again, the failure for the heroes to cooperate. In fact, he and their similar class of power were about all that was holding the table from falling apart.

Earth's safety could be at least doubled if the Association could figure out a way to improve their mutual harmony… but that was a task only a legend could complete.

A legend… a translucent shape emerged in the old man's memory, before a voice interspersed. "Sir Genos! Shouldn't you be at the terminal? The takeoff is in ten minutes!"

The table turned to find an executive running at them. Saitama blinked blankly. "I followed a toy car here."

The HA staff raised an eyebrow, before dismissing the unorthodox comment and motioning him along. "Come with me, sir. We need to get you prepared NOW!"

Bang waved at the departing shadow of the two. "Good luck! May the Dao be with you!"

Seeing them disappear into the exit, King spoke up slowly. "Is it me, or is there something weird with Genos?"

"What? Weird? What about it?" The samurai responded.

"I'm not sure. Intuition."

"That's only accurate for females." Bang chuckled. "Too much monster-crushing, King?"

"Guess so." The latter shrugged casually and picked up his fork. It didn't concern him either way. It wasn't as if he could fi…

The next ten minutes were a blur for Saitama. He was rushed to a fancy room he didn't have enough time to check out, before being stripped and enclosed in an astronaut suit.

Then, listening to the complaints of the staff, he was carted to a terminal and stuffed into a tight space, before the door closed on him. It took him three seconds to realize that… he was indeed in the rocket.

Hmmm… the boarding was much more anticlimactic than he imagined… like riding a bus.

And just as crowded he found it to be. He could barely shiver with the heavy space suit on… so the reasonable solution was to take it back off.

Unlike putting it on, dismantling the costume was much simpler. There was an emergency button that they explained, and one click did the job perfectly.

"Hey! Do you want to get yourself killed! Put that back on!" A high-pitched soprano bit from behind. Saitama twisted to find an exposed tunnel, but there was no one there.

"Hey! Are you listening to me!?" The screech grew icier, and Saitama placed his hand at his chin. He knew what was happening! He had seen it in movies. He was getting hallucinations from claustrophobia!

"HEY! Look at me!" A threatening green lit up from the ground, and Saitama stepped back reflexively to find a ball of viridescence dazzling at his chest.

"What are you?" He crossed his arms defensively and extinguished the green aura in an instant. His sight returned to find a short girl with her arms crossed, glaring at him intensely.

"Wha… I… I'M NOT A THING!" The child in front of him screamed. "Apologize NOW!"

"Hmmm… I'm sorry. I didn't see you there, kid. I thought you're a ghost." Saitama paced closer blithely. "This isn't a place to play though. Are you lost? How did you get in?"

"WH… So you think you can fool with me just because you handled the most basic Psybeam I have!? Take this!" The female's slitted dress flapped in strength as she floated, impressed in a starry green.

"Magic trick? Cool! I love lamps!" A goofy smile rested on Saitama's lips. "But green's for passing, so can you scooch a little to the left? My left… that's your right, which is the other side from your left."

"Notice: Takeoff in three minutes. Repeat: Takeoff in three minutes. Astronauts, please be seated. Please be seated."

At the sound of the alarm, Tatsumaki's glow dimmed as sense came to her. It was most likely unwise to exert her power in the delicate spacecraft…

Scoffing, she used the alert as an excuse to deflate. "Lucky bastard. Just watch, the next time you disrespect me, I will throw you through the moon."

"Important things should be said three times." Saitama commented aloud. "You're down one."

Tatsumaki stared in total puzzlement at the hero. This was to be her 'adviser'? Shaking her head and turning around, she decided that it was best not to waste her coffee-strained brain cells on idiots.

* * *

T-sixty seconds.

"Initiating final verification." Child Emperor, from his central post, exclaimed into a radio. Before him was a massive window exposing a direct line of sight to the prodigious rocket.

"Booster?"

"Go!"

"EECOM?"

"Go!"

"FIDO?"

"Go!"

"Guidance?"

"Go!"

"Network?"

"Go!"

"Surgeon?"

"Go!"

"HQ?"

"Down and prepared!"

_Stellar _was ready.

Child Emperor ingested a anxious breath. An anticipated smirk etched on his cheeks, the paragon peered over at Metal Knight, whose countenance was, as usual, an unwavering calm.

It was the first time ever the teenager was in charge of an esoteric project of this magnitude. He could use this experience as his engineering thesis now. Sorry, quantum gravity.

"Then…" The prodigy pressed strenuously on the transmit button. "With the power invested in me…"

"Wrong line." Bofoi coughed.

Child Emperor continued without hesitation. "Fire!"

The tone of a loudspeaker counted down, broadcasting across campus. "Ten!"

"Nine!"

"..."

"Three!"

"Two!"

"ONE!"

Half a second later, a wave of tantalizing noise swept across Factory Q. From the window, the two masterminds watched as the eight formidable engines were bathed in plasma paint. Below, Blast's quiescent cloud was consumed by the hurricane of yellow.

It roared, louder and louder, rattling boisterously. Metal Knight stood up.

One inch. Two inches. Three. One foot. Two…

In a blink, the momentous spacecraft accelerated to beyond the escape velocity, depreciating sound to a useless figment. The chains of gravity quaked and shattered, freeing the tempest to rise above City Q. The distant, dawning sun distilled streaks of orange across the sky, as if a solar cage, which, not even it, was enough to trap the consecrated machine that transported the hearts of humanity.

The grounded gawked breathlessly as the fantastic structure whipped past their logic and horizon, exhaling simultaneously.

Child Emperor smiled at Metal Knight. The mission was far from over, but its commencement was already as hypnotizing at a victory.

However, Bofoi's expression that greeted him was one beyond seriousness and vigilance. The junior S-Ranker's heart quavered as a terrible presentiment precipitated.

Now that his ears were liberated of the ringing from the launch, a new chime resonated, clarity improving with time.

It sounded familiar… too familiar… because they just had to deal with it less than half an hour ago.

The trumpeting of the security alarms… but it was much more thunderous than before… as if a dozen gates all erupted.

Blast's form materialized in the control room instantly. Metal Knight made eye contact with the hidden pupils. Communication exchanged in a blink.

"I don't know where the hell this is coming from." Bofoi's words exited like lead. On his wrist, what Child Emperor had assumed to be a watch shimmered. "Eight Dragon monsters are heading this way right now."

"And One God. From the Wasteland Ranges. They're one of the ancient clans!"

Child Emperor snapped his head up with the swift of a comet. "Say what!?"

"The clan of…"

Another bell of warning seized the youngster's attention, as well as the other two's. It was from the command pad.

He looked down in annoyance, before his eyes widened to an exaggeration more traumatic than the mentioning of the God level threat.

"HOLY SHIT!"

The two men were by him before he exited from shock. This was the first time either heard him curse. "What!?"

"Missile." His voice shook beyond control, in a frequency that exceeded the 'King Engine.' "Radar shows an intercontinental missile just fired from past the Wasteland, thirty seconds ago. It will make contact with Stellar in less than five minutes! Somehow someone has our trajectory!"

Head swiveling, Blast's cloud burned to a deep inferno. "Tatsumaki told me you're a Second Limiter?"

Metal Knight's pupils shrunk, before he nodded wordlessly.

"Handle the God Threat. Hold it for five… ten minutes." Blast raised his head up. "Child Emperor. Manage center station. Call the HA. Have reinforcements sent."

"Yes sir!"

"When we're done here. We're clearing the damn Wastelands!"

A scintillation, and both men were gone. The remaining hero bounced up with a renewed vigor. It only took him seconds to restrict inner frenzy. He mustn't panic. He was in charge now.

The radio sat by his hand. He snatched it up.

"HA. We have a problem."

* * *

The Chow Hall had been empty for five minutes. Most heroes were out watching the takeoff when the alarm shrieked.

Megaphones filled them in, quite curtly:

"ATTENTION! ATTACK ON FACTORY Q! SIGHTED EIGHT DRAGON LEVEL MONSTERS! ONE GOD LEVEL MONSTER! ONE GOD LEVEL MONSTER!"

Right as the announcement finished, explosions detonated from all sides. Wide-eyed heroes ascended the rooftops to espy a stunning sight.

They were surrounded. Utterly surrounded. All around, furry creatures replaced the color of the ground with a blackened purple. Countless Wolf level as soldiers, with Tiger their sergeants, and Demons their lieutenants.

Spearheading from all eight compass directions, there were the eight gigantic Dragon threats as the commanding Generals of the swarm. Bang's eyes contracted. He recognized the beasts. "WEREWOLVES!"

One of the primal tribes! The oldest, history dating back as far as men. Not modern men, but prehistoric men, millions and billions of years ago.

A deafening roar that rivaled the eruption of the takeoff overpowered the totality of the ruckus, hoarding the attention of all. In the mountains afar, a gargantuan crawled toward the lab.

At first sight, it seemed that it was moving at a turtle speed. However, the optical illusion shattered when it crossed half of the distance from the faraway peaks to the outskirts in nine steps. Its own species was pancaked in the trampling, but thousands more filled the gap.

The God-level Alpha Lycanthrope!

Even the S-ranked heroes shuttered at the sight. A rare glimpse of apprehension crossed Silver Fang's expression. Blast wasn't here. Tornado just flew off. He pictured going up against the brobdingnagian that was a mutated hill.

The venerable man winced, while his back straightened. He met Atomic Samurai's glare and read the meaning at once. It was ages… it really had been since they teamed.

Seriously cooperated, not like the playfight with the self-healing multi-headed punching bag from the alien ship. That battle, neither of them even broke physics.

But before the Top Third or Fourth could even twitch, the faint altitude above them was intoxicated with a mystic aurora borealis that rushed toward the mountain range. A rainbow replaced dawn as the color of City Q's sky.

In the remote plains, the enormous God-Level Monster lit up in rings of brilliant colors and exploded thirty-three times, thrusted far away from the battlefield.

The heroes extracted a sharp breath, which deepened when the Alpha Werewolf stood looking not much worse for wear, but for a few scratches, after the barrage.

Child Emperor's hurried voice knelled from Bang's radio. "Silver Fang! You're in charge of field warfare. I have to be up here for situational organization. Don't worry about the God Threat. Someone is taking care of that. Buy ten minutes, whatever the hell you do!"

His command resonated among the nearby heroes. Atomic Samurai murmured. "Someone is taking care of _that_!?"

"Then it's our job to handle the Dragons." Bang evaluated as the crowds of A-ranked heroes and Metal Knight's robots were already clashing into the assaulting stampede. "The A-ranked can block the Demons, hopefully."

"I can take a Dragon if I enter my ultimate mode." Metal Bat gritted his teeth. "Ten minutes are about all I can last though."

Bang gave him a profound look. They had served together for two years now, and he knew the gangster's limits. In his normal state, he had yet to breached the First Limit, and thus was no match for a Dragon threat.

However, Metal Bat's ability cursed him increased strength the more afflicted he was. At his max capability, he really could tackle a Dragon, but the drawback was lying in the infirmary for a week in the least. One did not get away with that addition of power without the corresponding backlash, and, that is, if he could endure the agony in the first place in the fight.

"I can eat one…" Pig God grunted, eyes twirling with anticipation and caution. "Two… is harder. I'll restrain them. Make it fast."

"Well, we'll handle the other five." Bang patted his old martial arts friend on the shoulder.

The latter grimaced. "That's a lot of work."

"Everyone else is fighting their asses off." Bang swore on the spot. "Child Emperor can't come."

"What is this? Do the _S-Ranked_ heroes need help?" A cheerful jeer sounded as a lanky male landed in front of them dapperly. With his hands facetiously in his pocket, Sweet Mask had a lingering smile at his mouth. "I'll squelch the last one for you."

Bang took in the impeccable figure of the celebrity. "I know you're far above an A-ranked. But this is a Dragon Threat."

"Let the boy go." Atomic Samurai suddenly spoke up, digging his eyes into the skull of the teen idol. "Anyone who can beat my three disciples up that badly has some skill."

"A lot of people can, old man." Sweet Mask snorted. "I call the one closest to the mountains. I don't want any cameras catching me. It'll ruin my image."

Metal Bat and Atomic Samurai roll their eyes into the occipital lobes as the A-ranked gatekeeper flew off the roof.

Pig God spoke up slowly. "He's a psychic?"

"Explains the frailty." Metal Bat snickered while glancing to the west.

The gastronome nodded before booming off. Each step he took crossed a whole street of length, before Pig God disappeared from view with a speed unbelievable for a mass so substantial.

The heroes on the roof were shocked as well, never before witnessing him moved with such sober haste. Metal Bat cried out after a second. "Hey! That one is mine!"  
The master thug shot after the first S-ranker.

Bang and Samurai glimpsed at each other. Two beams pounced into the south and east.

Pig God rolled through the boundary of the Factory without obstruction, beeline heading straight for the western Dragon werewolf's radius of unstoppable destruction. No A-rankers dared to enter the circle drawn by its claws.

Behind the S-ranker was a trail of blood and gore composed of Wolf and Tiger, and even an unfortunate Demon, a road opened by the sheer law of his inertia. He crashed forcefully into the Werewolf General, who roller-coastered for a ride through the altitude and flattened a dozen more beasts.

Pig God flicked a product of his nose at the fallen monster and wobbled into the northwest. The fully enraged Werewolf snarled in antipathy and trampled after him.

The large man found himself quickly arriving near his second target, Werewolf B. He grabbed at his left. In his hands, a mysterious suction materialized, and two Tiger threats fell harmlessly into his palm without a mere struggle.

He chucked the two at the second Dragon, who spun and diced the two projectiles into slices of meat with its claws.

Distorted nimbus of white streamed from Pig God. His adipose tissue was shaking with the aura of a Mid-First Limiter, awakened in its integrity.

The Ichor-Trainer 's ability was the rarest among any beings, humans or Mysterious Beings: Consumption. It performed much like the black hole created by psychics of raw power, like Tatsumaki.

Like her, he generated a vacuum of suction that manipulated gravity and defaced attacks. What's more, he used it to convert his 'food' into his own energy or even permanent endurance. As long as he did not reach his maximum digestive capability, he could, technically, devour all of his enemies.

Hell, if he evolved to a Post-Third Limiter, it was not difficult to ingest the planet!

Unfortunately, he could not yet absorb two Dragon monsters in one sitting. If Pig God had advanced to Post-First Limiter, the feat could be accomplished to a shaky extent, but it would be an infeasible challenge at Mid-First.

One Dragon was his restriction, and he mustn't consume one off the bat, or else he would lose his ability and put him out of the fight. He had to entangle two, after all.

The Northwestern Werewolf dove with a double claw attack. Pig God groaned and pivoted his back to it, like a shell. The claws ripped apart his shirt but were stuck into his flesh.

It did not even penetrate the latter's skin, which was as thick as a that of an stale T-rex. In the beast's dumbfounded moment, the hero spun and swung with an uppercut that flung the General into the air.

The second lycan ran after him with its mouth wide. Pig God thrashed his hand back. A swallowing hole appeared to its right, tripping the wolf onto the ground confoundedly.

The S-Ranker dashed after the fallen monster and leapt.

"HEAVY SLAM!"

A howl of intense anguish rang through the battlefield.

* * *

Half a mile from him, Metal Bat was flunked to the ground by a bellowing Werewolf General. Blood glided down from his ruptured lips savagely. The gangster discarded at the Dragon a barbaric smile before clutching his bat and sprinting toward it again.

The Werewolf rocked its arm against the HA's unbreakable weapon, which was knocked out of its user's grapple. But, unlike the last offense, the beast stumbled back a step.

A flash of puzzlement rippled across the canine's eyes. It could swear that the preceding attack was not so powerful.

Metal Bat, left arm twisted in a strange fashion, landed on his knees. Growling, his right hand took his elbow and snapped. A crude crack and an agonizing cry later, the joint fell back into place.

His bat punctured the ground in front of him, a foot away from his skull. Roaring, he charged after the beast again, eyes bloodshot.

He rolled without grace to dodge the General's follow-up punches and used the fraction of second when its fingers were stuck on the ground to initiate another strike.

The brute's other hand collided with the steel and launched him above its head. Metal Bat's wrist was besmirched in eerie purple and crimson.

A humongous fist demolished the tree next to him, missing him by a hair. The S-Ranker rose back up, his determination overpowering the shattering ache through his anatomy.

He clashed with the Werewolf again and again, dripping a trail of blood mixed with broken teeth and traces of organs in a wide circle around his enemy.

But even so, Metal Bat was in charge of the rhythm. He kited the mindless wolf in a repeated geometry, never letting the Dragon out of the ellipse as to interfere with the other battlers.

The gangster had learned a long time ago in his street fights that it was imperative to clench the tempo of any skirmishes in his own hands. It was never scary to be overwhelmed as long as he led the attack.

It was then too when he learned that pain was a mere nuisance. The last one standing didn't need to be the strongest. He just needed to be the most tolerant… and the most careless for his life.

His eyes seared with blood as his fuel, bat as erect as his penetrating gleam. For the thirteenth time, he jumped, somehow still possible with bone shards perforating from parts of his skin, and smashed the compact club against the Werewolf General.

The beast's arm made contact. With a sickening crack, the anatomy fractured and bent. The Dragon screamed and fell backwards. Metal Bat collapsed onto one knee, panting, using his weapon as a cane to hold himself. Bloodlust quilted his pupils.

In the monster's, there was none of the playfulness that dotted previously, or even the transitioned seriousness. In its dim intelligence, there was an outline of fear, fear stimulated by the misery streaming from its arm and… the seeming ant in front.

He stood each time he fell, and came again with a greater magnitude of power with each failure. He was…

An infallible man.

Metal Bat lunged with another attack, and, for the first time, the Werewolf backed away into a defensive position.

The S-ranker's aura skyrocketed, and the clash moved the large fiend straight into an enlarging pile of corpses.

* * *

On the northern side, Sweet Mask's battle was much more… stolid.

He skyrocketed atop the battlefield with pink lights soaring out of himself. Eyes a cinnamon incandescence, he locked sight with the Werewolf General directly beneath him.

The Dragon monster squalled and freighted itself up with magnificent legs after the aerial target. A rosy fire flared up on the Top A-Ranker's fist.

In front of him, a much larger fist constructed of psychic condensation matured and crashed against the Werewolf. With a tormented shriek, it was knocked back down and pancaked against the ground.

"Primitive!" Sweet Mask sniveled. A coral spell flickered off him and struck the Dragon on its head… seemingly without effect. The esper's signature smile appeared. "I'm making this more civilized. Let us fight in your Pneuma."

In the next instant, both man and beast froze, united by a transcendental linkage of invisibility.

All concentration in the Werewolf General's eyes wasted, and it slumped onto its stomach, while its conscious left reality and was whirlpooled into its inner intimacy.

Its dream world was carpeted in a soothing pink that was festing rapidly. The scene was no more the northern battlefield, but the Wasteland mountains it called home.

And… lying before it… was a dozen beautiful albino female wolves.

The flames of libido tore through its veins. That… that was the northern Commander's wife! Wait, there was his own ex-mate, and… was that the Alpha's third daughter!?

Petals of roses drizzled from the blush sky. The ravine General's cousin was purring at it. Bulging, it gnarled and charged toward the sexy crowd.

A mile upwards, a cold, princely grin leaked from Sweet Mask's lips. "How… pitiful. At least the last Dragon threat lasted two minutes."

The pink fire kept burning warmly in the oblivious Werewolf's world, turning everything indolently to dust.

* * *

Bang stood firmly astute. The two Werewolves panted as they scrutinized him cautiously. They had exchanged the first series of attacks, with neither side obtaining a clear advantage.

Animals had a much keener sense of danger as compared with humans, and Silver Fang was radiating an air of potency that perturbed their alarms to blare at full blast.

The old martial artist cracked his shoulders. He felt… great! He hadn't had a workout so satisfying in a long freaking time.

There wasn't much in the world that required the full attention of a Post-First Limiter, especially one with half his foot stepped into the next Limit.

As he stretched, the Werewolves traded a glance and rushed at the dojo master, deeming the action a point of vulnerability.

Bang dove to the right. One General, registering his intent, adjusted his stance and swung accordingly, aiming at where it perceived the elder was to be.

However, the skillful S-Ranker was even quicker. Seeing that his opponent took the bait and capitulated their flawless wall of attack, he shifted his momentum onto one foot and converted translational momentum into rotational, transforming himself into a stationary human fidget spinner.

The first attack missed an inch by his ear, while the second attack closed in horizontally from the side. Bang closed one eye, his left fist flushing blue. "Flowing water…"

The enormous palm of the Dragon monster connected with the master's, and… the Werewolf did not feel anything…

The impact of the collision it was bracing itself for was nonexistent. It felt that it had… thrown a punch into a pool of cotton. Its force just went missing, acting on absolutely nothing.

A hostile blue rushed up Silver Fang's left arm and crossed his chest, ultimately appending to a reservoir of red that charged up on his right. The martial artist's eyes glimmered.

"Crushing ROCK!" Bang exploded from the ground up at the second beast's head. The blow of his own Ichor and that of the first Dragon combined bursted on the lycan's temple.

A clear cry resonated through the battlefield, and, seeing stars, it fell to the ground clutching its cranium.

Bang flipped past the other Werewolf's jabbing and balanced on his feet and hands. Swept with blood and fragments of flesh, he was at his pinnacle, power or Psyche. The disposition of a cultivated lord flooded the war zone, suppressing even the stomping of thousands.

Undefeated.

* * *

Sensing Bang releasing his full power in the south, Atomic Samurai bit down hard on his stalk of grass. His battlefield was the bloodiest, with puddles of blood and chopped flesh scattered over, none of which his. He eyed the two Werewolves before him. "Enough games."

His sword clanged against the nails of a beast, its physique lined with deeps lacerations and side cuts.

The katana spun gracefully, slicing his opponent's fourth finger off accurately through the joint. The General screeched in pain and swiped, punching furiously to no use.

The samurai zoomed through the spacious gaps at a speed that nearly rivaled Flashy Flash's and pointed his weapon at the second Dragon.

The Werewolf flinched reflexively, and the sword missed its forehead to dig itself into its right shoulder.

The saber bent and sprung back up, propelling the Post First-Limiter away before the monster's vehement hand slammed on its injury, motivating another sequence of enraged yelps.

On the ground now, the swords master clasped the blade vertically between both palms. "Physics!? To hell!"

The blade levitated against all odds without psychic or magic. Atomic Samurai's eyes glistened with puissant gazes that were the origins of his maneuver. "My sword! My rules! Aerial ACE!"

The rapier zoomed off at supersonic speed. The feral instincts of the wild beast shoved its head back as the premonition of a great danger dawned on its heart.

But only as his neurons began to comply with the command, the blade was at its head. Next thing it knew, the sword flew off with a gorgeous line of blood bridging behind. A familiar round object was impaled on the tip of the sword.

That was… a piercing agony streamed from its eye socket. Its left field of vision faded to blindness as it finally realized that… the sword had stabbed through its cornea!

Before it recovered from the shock, the katana flickered under the intense sunlight and boomeranged back, an uninterruptible journey for its right eyeball!

A shadow loomed over itself. It saw in its remaining blurry vision that its brother had stepped into the way with a hand unfolded, roaring as it went after the flying sword.

Atomic Samurai scoffed. "SPLIT!"

The blade shuddered and cracked into five pieces, each unpredictably looping past the extended anatomy and spearing into the Werewolf.

The morbid scream of a handicapped Dragon squawked in the southern battlefield. The General crashed onto the ground, pinned. The grounded fragments tranducted into five beacons of lights stretched into the clouds and down through the mantle. One burrowed deep into its left arm, locking it to the ground. One to its right arm, another to its right leg, fourth to its left, and the last… dead center of its crotch.

All who caught sight of the wound, men or beasts, squeezed its legs and looked up at the monstrous S-Ranker in obvious fear as a cold air rushed against their privates.

In the far distance, an ethereal rainbow lightning clashed again with the gigantic God level Werewolf and separated, materializing into Bofoi.

The Second Limiter's normally tranquil countenance was a mask of solemn deadliness. Bruises and scars lined the Alpha's torso, and blood poured down like waterfall.

Its blood was an eerie, unhealthy green, as opposed to the silver red of his species. Metal Knight panted. His adversary was off for the worse, but he too had taken a heavy toll.

The S-Ranker was not a feeble old man, as recognized by the Hero Association who gifted him the position only because of the robots.

His ability, known only to Tornado when she challenged him, was magnetic manipulation, on top of normal psychokinesis (unlike the crazy sprite who had dumped all her psychic into raw power).

Like she described, he had the aptitude to diffuse his body into intangible pulses in fights, casting him as nearly impossible to kill in hand-to-hand combats, at least until he ran out of stamina.

A giant claw the size of a normal Dragon monster plunged, shredding him into scraps of illusion that segregated to winking lights. They poured through the gaps of the herculean paw and gathered at the God's skull, constricting.

Insane pressure compressed against the Werewolf's forehead, which propelled a holler that shook the mountains' core. The sound wave repelled the concentrated dazzle and scattered it into the sky, in which it merged to a hazier figure.

Bofoi had an increasingly deepened frown. He raised his head to peek at the sun. Trigonometry of its interval of movement told him that… eight minutes had dragged by.

Two more.

* * *

His eyes narrowed. The S-rankers were holding out. The Demons were putting the game on the A-Rankers, but they were fortifying well. His robots had set up a concrete defense line and shrinking the walls of protection.

With the help of his turrets and the replica of the technologies from the alien ship that destroyed City A in one action, they were constructing a second wall made of the corpse of werewolf soldiers.

The tactic of limiting the surface area was functioning. Only so many monsters could pile up at once, and they found a rate at which they dropped as fast as his lasers fired.

It all rested on him to tangle the God. The more they fought, the less the Alpha Lycanthrope was paying attention to him and more to Factory Q.

"The damn thing has no attention span!" Bofoi scowled and synthesized into seven lightnings of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The Werewolf jabbed into the heights and detonated six. The last― purple beam― vaporized the fur on its head. It tossed a look of hatred at the clouds and stumbled toward the industrial bunker.

Metal Knight's eyes swelled. SHIT! He still needed a minute and a half. He had ZERO guarantee his Factory could guard against a God level threat. Maybe Factory X and A could, but not Q!

Abruptly, a deluge of aura ascended into the air from the right of the God, at the edge of the northern battlefield.

Clouds swirled and evaporated before mysteriously fusioning again with rolling thunder. Metal Knight inhaled intensely. This was… the ability to distort weather… and just by releasing his self-energy!

Who was this!? Was he… Post-Second Limit!? Damn! He himself was only Pre-Second!

A lone silhouette stood in a clean patch away from the war. His clothes were clean, his swaying shadow projected by the daybreak across the landscape.

King.

Pig God pranced to avoid a succession of furious strokes from the Werewolf on his left. His peripheral vision caught the second General lunging at him. In response, he threw out a vacuum to its right intended to redirect its course.

As his gesture adjusted to land, the Werewolf's face deformed into a nasty smile. Opening its claws, it revealed a dozen of Demon monsters who were long compressed in its palm and threw them at the wormhole.

Like a plug, it filled up Pig God's suctioning for a few seconds, enough for the Dragon's now undisturbed trajectory to impact with the S-Ranker, bringing him down with a choke hold.

Pig God growled and slammed both of his elbows back, beating on the Werewolf's stomach. However, it was no use. The grip stiffened.

The other lycan, keenly aware of the advantage its comrade had presented them with, lifted its claws and smited for the one weakness on Pig God's nearly impenetrable body: his eyes.

Eyes were always the least protective spot, for all species, and yet so important for their functions.

Pig God roared. He had held them for long enough. He had to use his trump card. It was now or never.

Suddenly, a ball of pure white dashed out of nowhere and clobbered into the attacking Werewolf, knocking the monster backwards with a lightning-sequence of punches.

The furry afterimages converged to the identity of… "Watchdog!"

The fellow S-Ranker barked vociferously through the yells of his opponent as an answer to the greeting.

The canine imitator was known for being stationary strictly within City P, but the battlefield of Q was only a few dozen miles from his own territory.

The screams of death and annihilation had woken the hero up, who sped over as fast as he could, _especially _after smelling the scent of the crooked Werewolves.

In his slight instant of wavering attention, the Dragon caught the opportunity to dodge upwards and tank his punches on the stomach, while launching a kick that sent its foe back.

Watchdog Man adjusted his position and landed in sync with the beast, eyes of the similar species trained on each other.

To the disbelief of everyone, the Werewolf abruptly backed down and away only after a brief period of mutual stares, as if it had sighted a taunting presence in the nonchalant expression of the four-legged human.

"Too late." Watchdog flapped his tongue out in an undignified manner. A rare, passionate expression of enthusiasm danced through his costume.

The opposing Werewolf hollered, but there was none of the esteem from before. Next, the General turned and started running on fours, with its tail unmistakably between its legs!

The air on top of Watchdog Man spun and contorted into a giant shape, kindled by a glorious arctic white, into the head of a massive dog.

The profundity of infinity roamed its eye sockets for a mere second, but it was enough to unveil the primordial history behind the shadow of the ageless creature whose illusion the hero had summoned.

Opening its jaws wide, the formation dove and snatched the escaping Werewolf up, completely useless as it was hoisted up.

*SNAP! A chilling crack scoured the battlefront. The vast shadow evanesced, and bits of leftover gore rained down on the heads of countless monsters.

Pig God's opponent widened its pupils to half the size of its face and bellowed in overwhelmed grief. The gourmet snorted and rammed back with all his force, driving the Dragon threat away and breaking its embrace.

"You think I couldn't deal with you?" The S-ranker's eyes were dyed with crimson. "Time's up, little puppy."

A second gigantic mirage following Watchdog's spawned in the high skies― a depthless, gloomy hole like the mouth of Satan, swallowing all light and everything of creation.

"CONSUMPTION!"

Pig God needed not to hold back anymore. He had only one opponent left, and that meant its death… or for him, a satisfying meal.

All of a sudden, the Werewolf felt a constricting pain that restrained itself like being bundled up in resilient cords… no, titanium chains. It couldn't move a muscle.

Instead, its blood poured backwards into its organs. Its bones snapped and folded inwards, while its flesh condensed and contracted. Its entire anatomy was shrinking into a compressed ball.

Its eyeballs popped under the immense pressure. His throat collapsed, bulldozing the forlorn wails. The Werewolf levitated up into the sky, into the gaping mouth. The warring parties watched in horror and awe as the minimized lycan was lifted like cargo into the cavity, gradually submerging from sight. A few seconds later, the aperture in space closed. The Werewolf was engulfed.

Two down.

* * *

Metal Bat wheezed heavily. His face was unrecognizable to even Zenko, was his little sister here. Not a single piece of his bones remained intact, and not a single vessel was un-burst.

His gelatin had swollen up so much he could not see a thing in his vision, and his eyedrums had erupted in the lengthy past.

Nose? Not a trace.

Logically speaking, he should have fallen ages ago… when this battle had first started.

Yet, he still grasped his bat in his slouching hand, painted with dried and fresh scarlet. Even without sight or hearing, he could sense the enemy before him.

And therefore, he swung, defying physics, with the force of a First-Limiter.

His Werewolf foe had turned to a pulp, gasping for oxygen. It saw the bat arrive, but it stared hopelessly as it connected with its chest, tossing it into the air.

It didn't want to fight back. It had… given up. Time after time, the man had not just fallen, but fainted. Yet, he ascended, again and again, and added another bruise, another torn ligament, another broken cartilage in the General's body.

It had tried knocking him back down, but he was up in no more than five. It had tried throwing him, mutilating him, stomping, swinging, kicking, to hell, biting!

The result was always the same. He was up.

The Werewolf had been defeated in the past. Had been trumped. Had been bullied. Had been abused! Had surrendered!

But never, never had it lost hope. Another bat swing connected with its skull, drilling it into the soil, which had now turned to a cerise, squishy marsh.

Until now.

It felt useless. No matter what, it could never hammer the puny human over. It watched as the battered weakling ripped apart its titanic health.

Its past played in front of its eyes. The last barrage exploded on its head, pulverizing its skull into dust and smearing its brains.

Even through its last second of life, the Dragon monster still could not understand how the hell it fell to a human who had not breached First Limit.

* * *

On the eastern battlefield, Atomic Samurai faced the standing Werewolf with a confident smirk. Its partner was locked to the ground by five unremovable beams.

His power had grown dramatically since his last full-strength battle, he decided. Maybe he _could_ take three at once.

The lone Dragon with a sole eye towered over the swords master. A raspy, repulsive howl that sounded less than half of coherent speech cackled. "Howya gon fight naw!? Ya sod's gon!"

"Is it?" The Post-First Limiter retaliated as he reached into his battle suit and rived it apart, unmasking his toned body to the naked eye.

At the base of his neck on his back was a handle that had melted into his skin, pointing upwards and its guard down.

His right hand reached back, grasped the hilt firmly, and pulled. A searing noise sliced through the war zone like two scratchy metals scraping against each other, magnified tenfold.

A ghastly, vermilion glow emulated from between his shoulder blades. As if by a sort of curse, Atomic Samurai was slowly yanking his SPINE out by the grip!

Implausibly, not a drop of blood seeped out. In the S-Ranker's palm was a blood-red sword with 24 stiff vertebrate that shone a metallic bronze.

"My sword is in my heart." He raised the cutlass high in the air and swung.

From the direction of the rising sun, a crest of magical, transparent florid dawned. With the unstoppable rays it drifted, and with light speed it brushed soundlessly against the skin of the Werewolf.

Then, it fell back into Atomic Samurai's hand, whose owner reinserted back into his body.

The re-commencing noise of the rough scouring finally triggered the consequential reaction.

The light cut on the Werewolf's skin broadened. In a second, millions of tiny slashes carved the anatomy of Dragon.

The next instant arrived. The beast withered away into ruddy specks that followed the wind north into the Wastelands.

Prisoned to the ground, the remaining General had lost all sparks in its eyes as well. Atomic Samurai had destroyed its soul a long time ago. The sharp essence and determination of swordsmanship vaporized its Pneuma.

It took a minute for its body to stop thrashing, lastly registering that its conscious had already perished.

"My sword _is _my spine."

* * *

Bang lifted his head to see the wisps of red from the east, and the giant hole and canine jaws in the west. His eyes narrowed at the two Werewolves before him.

It was time to end this!

A pattern of Yin-Yang was magically chiseled on the barren Earth, replacing the stained brown with a pure white chased by a dense black.

At the center of the black was a dot of angelic white, and at the center of the white was a grain of fathomless sombre.

Atop the dinky oxymoronic patches were the two Werewolf Generals, captive in its own color, unable to step out of the the tiny bound.

Swaying in the air was an arcane, mystical wit that pulsated with the rhythms of the universe.

In the sight of the trapped monsters, the twirling black and white began to combine and fuse into… the pillaring shadow of a regal humanoid.

All else disappeared. There was no battlefield. There was no existence. No light. Only darkness and the lord.

The incessant oblivion continued for an eternity, until the souls of the two Dragons dried and fossilized, when finally a strand of light glitter.

One became two, two became three, and three inflated into a million rays. The world was showered in splendour, and reality emerged. The silhouette was no longer dim, and its face came into perception.

Its was… the countenance of the man they were fighting. The face of Bang!

The Big Bang!

The presence, as if one with actuality, gazed down at them. There was no emotion, no currents.

Extending one hand, it waved at the Yin-Yang, which flew into its palm. A rumbling voice rang in the vast space.

"Peace!"

And there was peace.

On the southern battlefield, Bang panted intensely as he knelt on the ground. To his right was a pool of black liquid, and to his left was one of molten white.

Peace came at a price, but it was one of those valuables for which no one regretted paying.

* * *

In the northern battlefield, Sweet Mask's frozen, hovering form shook, like breaking out of a state of subconsciousness.

He lifted his palm up to his immaculate face. Laying serenely on it was the hollow, pink, miniature hologram of a Werewolf.

A ridiculing smile evaded the celebrity's lips. His hand tightened into a fist.

The sound of glass cracking reverberated around him.

The Werewolf General would never wake back up.

* * *

King watched as the Alpha Werewolf trampled in his direction. As if paralyzed, his expression shifted not a sludge, and nor did his stance.

The clouds kept churning in the skies, an aura of potency sweeping across the war in waves each higher than the last.

The God monster screeched to a halt before him and roared, as if pronouncing dominance.

King merely glanced. No one noticed the twitch at the corner of his eye, not even himself.

The wolf and man stared at each other for thirty seconds, judging the opposite's weakness. The Alpha lycan raised its claw. King closed his eyes.

*SHIT!

His ability was nothing like the others. It had nothing to do with attacks, or defenses, or not even utility.

He knew only how to do one thing, and one thing only: pretense. He was an elite actor, and he might as well win the Oscar if he was in the show business.

King was born with the talent to impress his confidence on the natural world with no effort. Just like how First Limiters like Bang could project giant formations in the sky and ground that formed on command when they used their power, King could do so too.

However, his was only a fraud― a sham, with no backing power. At the max execution of his ability, he could make it seem as if he was a post-Second Limiter.

Technically, King was a Pre-First Limiter, since, by definition, a First Limiter was one who could transgress physics. But, he was doubtlessly the weakest First Limiter there was by physical strength.

Nonetheless, the disposition in itself dissuade every monster from Wolf to Dragon to avoid him, which gained him his rank in the S-Class.

But in reality, he was no fighter. At most, a visual effect programmer.

He had run up north, hoping to slip away without being noticed. It was the side with no heroes, being the origin of the stampede. If he went directly back to City Q, too many heroes would recognize him and his attempt to bail.

It was especially perfect, since Sweet Mask had fallen into his self-induced trance in which he had also dragged the Dragon threat.

As a result, he did not even need to worry about the General, in whose case King must release a Second-Limit disposition to dispel, which attracted too much attention.

He had nearly made it to the border of the war, in fact, before he saw the gargantuan Alpha charging in his direction. Thinking out of desperation, he released his full deception, hoping to oust it, which coincidentally lured the beast to him.

The mind of the S-Ranked imposter was blank, regretting a thousand times over the decision to come to the launch at the promise of free food. King could smell the repugnant breath, the vigorous wind, the…

*KABOOM! An intense wind blasted him backwards, throwing him to the ground. Opening his eyes, King saw heaves of green slime and chunks of carnage raining down.

The God Werewolf had exploded into pieces.

King's face solidified as he was drenched in bits.

What! The! Hell!?

A rainbow light materialized beside him. A hand rested on his shoulder. King spun to see Metal Knight nodding at him.

"I did not know you're a Post-Second, King." Bofoi smiled, before letting out a series of coughs. "Nice job taking down that thing. I'm not much of a straight-on fighter. I might not have held it much longer."

"I… I…" King opened his mouth, but no words come out.

"Don't worry about manners and humility, now. We're both too tired to care." Metal Knight waved a hand, as if he had understood all. "Blast should be back in a few more seconds."

As his voice died, a rumbling storm ruptured through the Wasteland mountains on signal. An enormous hand materialized of lightning stretched across the mountain range.

Metal Knight's aurora borealis, the First Limiter's summons, the Alpha Werewolf's ex-physique, and even King's bluff were nowhere near the size of the mystic anatomy.

It was ten times larger than City Q. The alien ship that had destroyed City A was, at most, the length of its thumb. It was one that challenged the dieties' body.

As if the sky was collapsing, the hand crashed down into the mountains, the barriers to the inner Wasteland. An earthquake swept through the Alphabet, a magnitude that was discerned even in City Z.

When the hand lifted, three of the skyscraping mountains had vaporized, opening a giant breach into the heart of the wilderness.

The entire battlefield froze. No one dared move a muscle in this heavenly occurrence. It was not a demonstration of power anymore. It was a holy damnation. A planetary calamity. One that should not belong to mortals.

The formation was then pigmented by a deep red and shrunk, undulating as it floated over like a cloud until it positioned itself right above the battlefield.

Fiery petals of inferno rained down from the hurricane of conflagration. The blazes fell at the speed of sound, ignoring the demands of gravity and air drag. When it passed through the human heroes or robots, it faded harmlessly.

On the contrary, when it touched the flesh of the monsters, dead or alive, it sprung up into a brilliant flame that rendered Blue Fire's full charge a mere flicker by comparison.

The leftover Werewolf Army did not even have time to yelp. In a blink, they burned to dust and dissipated. The battleground of bloody marsh was covered once again in a tarp of brown, as if nothing had happened. Not a trace remained.

The entire offense was disintegrated into nothingness in a mere second.

Blast's majestic grace descended from the paradise like an ambassador from the Creators.

It was after him whom a hotheaded esper modeled her common entrance, but even she could not capture the full grandeur of the Top S-Ranker, the Hero Association's ultimate weapon.

A Third-Limiter.

* * *

**A/N: (Important Concept) Psyche- Attitude one holds. It's what determines their actions. Also interpreted an emotional state. For example, Atomic Samurai's Psyche is his sword. Metal Bat's Psyche is resilience. What's Tatsumaki's? Next chapter!**

**If you guys recognized the Pokémon references, kudos.**

**Please comment whether you enjoy the details of the battle. Longer? Shorter? Or just fine? There will be a lot of these, but in space!**

**This is among the last scenes of Earth. Space episodes initiate next chapter!**


	3. Cha 3- Bust? Or Is It?

**Standard Disclaimer: I lust after the rights to One Punch Man like the Werewolf General lust after the Alpha's daughter.**

**A/N: I've uploaded a second Fanfic named "Part of Us- Behind the Scenes". It is a place where I deeply explain the concepts, abilities, and battles used in PoU that would otherwise turn my chapters here into boring drabbles. In other words, the second Fanfic is a giant, informational Wiki. I encourage you to check it out!**

**And now, please enjoy Chapter 3!**

* * *

**Cha. 3- Bust!? Or Is It?**

**Previously…**

"_A missile…"_

The glass to the control room of Factory Q liquefied as a beam of light rippled through so fast space bent around its existence.

In seconds, the cirrus clouds of the stratosphere volatilized in a vortex of red.

Much below it, an aurora borealis painted the sky and spread north to the mountains, but Blast paid no attention to Metal Knight.

His concentration was trained dead on the leftover traces of the rocket, trails of its trajectory still undispersed in the infinitesimal collision of atoms in the sky.

But, he needed to be faster.

Blast separated from the flight path and accelerated north. An expansive wave of his Pneuma loomed over a quarter of the Wasteland, which was the size of the Alphabet itself.

Immediately, he detected the rocket, at the brim of the mesosphere, as well as the ballistic missile in the distance that was piercing through the thermosphere.

_So it's planning to enter the same low Earth orbit and crash into Maki when Stellar's track transitioned from parabolic into elliptical!_

_And right when they are entering the teleporter!_

The Top S-Ranker felt a shiver through his spine at the toxic scheme. He knew Tatsumaki could easily handle a single missile, but…

The problem was that they were to clash when she reached the teleporter!

Space distortion was among the most dangerous form of travel… one mistake, and you'll be crushed into a million fragments! Or, even more horrific, your organs bent outward, and your skin twisted inward, and your liver could be your new nose!

Was she to exercise her power at the mouth of the wormhole… even the slightest disturbance would deform the delicate tunnel and have it cave inward…

The continuum of space itself would be nullified into a blizzard of distortion that tore apart all and everything. Blast himself would not be able to survive for long. Being an outsider in the Continuum, an area restricted for spatial crevices, it was like competing with the universe itself!

Even if she survived, by the figment of chance, who knew where the hell the waves of space would sweep her to… but for damn sure not to New Earth! He had sent her off to avoid the mess that would ensue, NOT to some banishment!

Blast had not been surprised to this degree in a long while. For decades, he thought he had Earth and the Core grasped in his palm. And… something screwed up at _this_ key moment!?

A fit of anger long lost in his ceaseless years of scavenging expedition in space fumed into deadly wrath. His speed was raised again, reaching near a hundredth that of light.

In seconds, the rocket was past him, and so was the ground. The horizon around him blackened, but his sight was unmistakably clear as a cone-shaped torpedo whipped through the atmosphere.

Blast growled. A horrible aura arose and spun into a whirlwind noticeable by the satellites. From the eye of the storm, a colossal hand of orange extended and slapped into the missile like it was an ant.

The resulting nuclear explosion only wisped into a tiny mushroom before the Third-Limiter's crushing gust rended the combustion.

But abruptly, in the place of the eruption, a hologram materialized, immune to the physical effects of psychic.

"**Blast. We meet again.**"

The S-Ranker's figure emerged in front of the formation. "Who the hell are you!?"

"**Ahhh… Forgotten me so fast? It has been but only eighteen years.**"

Eighteen years ago… Blast's pupils solidified. Only one incident had happened in that year and it was…

"So you're the cricket behind that Project Cyborg… I had been curious where you disappear to. The First-Limit bot had no soul within."

"**First Limit? If you didn't interfere, the girl's fusion could have made it Second Limit! Instead, the power went to her. A waste!**"

"Who are you, and why have you come out after the many years? Not afraid anymore? What's the new card? Maki would be so glad to know that you're alive to be killed."

"**That girl!? Hahaha! Good luck with that, Blast, you shall never see her again!**" The hologram's tone abruptly shifted.

Blast's heart quaked. "What are you talking about!? I searched the northern Wasteland already! This is your only missile! Plus, there's no way the HA could let you get another off!"

"**Oh, how naive, Blast, or… shall I call you… Blaine?**"

The Top hero's eyes bulged and his hand quivered, accidentally bursting the hologram into blinking lights. However, they materialized back to a translucent shape a second later.

"WHO ARE YOU!?" His voice elevated eightfold.

"**You were so much more competent when you abandoned the alliance then. The talk of the centuries. Even the Legends couldn't stop you. Who had thought, decades later, I, a mere enlisted, trash in your eyes, could play you in my hands? How much have you actually recovered?**"

"You…!" The image shattered under excessive force, but reformed yet again.

"**Oooo, I'll let you off with one more news, 'Commander.' I have people in your play-thing too. Well… people. The missile the girl is on has… wait for this… a compressed nuke… one I brought to Earth hundred years ago. Guess when it would detonate.**"

"The wormhole…" Blast's eyes widened. His figure glowed and dashed into the clouds. He flew off for only half a second before realizing that something was off… he was not actually covering distance! It was as if his brain was perceiving that he was flying, but he was stuck!

"**Don't bother. This missile was never for her. It was for you. A small time bomb. I've been saving it for a century. Time is frozen in this area for minutes… enough for her to enter the wormhole… How ironic. You were who invented it and demolished Avatar's galaxy with it three thousand years ago. How does it feel?**"

Suddenly, Blast glowered back at him and calmed dramatically. Gone from his expression was anger: only an ominous, dehumanized null. "Pray that you have a good hiding spot."

The hologram, on the other hand, continued like the threat was never issued. "**Why, though, I've always been wondering, you would toss away your glory to sit in this rotting planet? Care to inform me? A thank-you gift for not ratting your position out in the hundreds of years?**"

The hologram shattered into pieces in Blast's grip, but the voice still cackled as it faded. "**I'm sure you're going back now and carpet bombing everything to find me. We shall meet soon, Commander, and I expect a logical mind next time for our cooperation. That pirate found this place, and I'm sure others will come soon. You've waited too long, Blaine, and so have I. Her death is just a warning.**"

The streaming dazzle died. Blast levitated in the thermosphere with a countenance that was so condensed water could seep out at any moment.

He looked down at a remote in his hand. The remote to the teleporter. He picked his head back up at space. The dark, dark space.

The remote evaporated into plasma. He raised his hand. A starry contraption dropped like a meteor from thousands of feet up.

The teleporter, miniaturized.

He glanced down. A screen formed in his Pneuma.

_Transportation Incomplete. Energy disrupted. Destination lost._

Blast closed his eyes and swallowed.

History… it was fast.

* * *

Tatsumaki's head leaned against a huge, furry pillow that was trapped between herself and the window of the rocket. She glanced out.

It had been seven minutes since _Stellar_ launched. The sky was being discolored at an increasing pace, the dawning sun deserting her behind. Soon, it was going to be as black as her pillow.

The torrents of vibrations washed against her protective green and were neutralized, unable to stir even the corner of her silky dress.

*Crunch

Her eyes dangled precariously after the source of the sound as she was invariably reminded that someone else was here… with her… in this crowded space.

In her vision, a cyborg was munching on a waffle produced out of nowhere, his body flipped upside down. Catching her glimpse, Saitama grinned with attempted droll, while showing her the contents of his mouth.

Tatsumaki's face twisted into one of disgust and slanted her eyes back toward the window, wordlessly. She had nothing to say to such an unserious and disrespectful weakling, and, on top of that, a pig.

The tiny strand of faith from Blast's conversation disintegrated. How in the hell was this barbarian supposed to be _her_ adviser!? On top of that, how the hell did she manage to let her ex-guardian bamboozle her into this muddled arrangement?

"Hmmm? What's bad? An itch or something?" The annoying voice pursued from her left.

Tatsumaki took a deep breath. It wasn't time to squash this fool yet, she told herself. She was to be a lady and wait until they get to the planet, and _then_ she'll teach him the meaning of courtesy with a series of Psybeams…

"Oh, I know! You're still mad at me. Don't be angry. It's bad for puberty. You get a lot of pimples." Saitama remarked as he scratched his forehead, memory flashing back to middle school.

Tatsumaki snapped her head at him, glaring daggers at the metal sheen. "WHAT did you say!?"

"Huh? Caring for your health." The male hero tilted his head at her. "That's all."

"Just WHO do you think you are!? WHO!?" The esper shrieked. "You think you can be so abrasive and sarcastic and cocky!? WHAT gave you the courage, your dumb brassy scraps?

"Hey! You said a bad word." Saitama looked at her with disapproval and shook his head. "Strike one."

Tatsumaki stared at him in disbelief. What… just what was wrong with him!? "Are your moronic wires loose or something?"

"I thought 'dumb' was a bad word in kindergarten." Saitama rubbed his skull in realization. "Oh wait. You're past that. My bad."

It took the psychic powerhouse a second to comprehend the statement. When she did, her curls electrified into straight spikes like a porcupine. "SAY! WHAT?"

"What?" The hero-for-fun complied vacantly.

Tatsumaki's eyes swelled before magnifying into a brilliant inferno. Her delicate face, still encapsulating the youth of adolescence, contracted even further. He just… pissed her off SO much, like he had an inexplicable cloud of provocative aura that catalyzed her already easily-triggered fury with the slightest of ease.

Especially with that careless attitude, that absurd smile, and his nonchalant expression that was blasting the fact that he really did think of her as a child! He was not merely yapping to enrage her. He really did feel that way!

Tatsumaki was seething, shaking all over. Repeatedly, she had to tell herself this was not the time to pummel him.

Saitama blinked. "Are you ok? Do you have a seizure? Should I call an ambulance?"

"SHUT UP!" She couldn't hold back anymore. It was impossible. Why didn't she kidnap Drive Knight to be her partner? Wait… had he made her this desperate…

An obscure blackness overwhelmed her, literally. With a furious shake, the rocket entered the designated teleporter.

In the back of her mind, there was a gradually elevating premonition of danger. It was the keen sixth sense of danger trained through years of combat and evolution. However, in her wrath, she completely disregarded the beeping in the unconscious.

But, Saitama had not. In fact, his alarm was bawling much louder, infused with the power of a Third Limiter. Reflexively, the bald hero tensed up into a ball of suspense ready to pounce before his mind could even process the message.

Many moments passed until he came to terms with what the feeling was. It had been years since its last emergence. YEARS.

The intuition of peril. Not even of a simple hazard, but of a terminal disaster. One that could… _kill_ him.

His vacuous visage immediately squirmed to form strict, distinct lines that defined each corner and edge. An august glow of magnificence shot from his eyes, integrated with the hidden confidence that finally saw the light after so long of concealment.

Saitama's sixth sense was never wrong. He had learned the phenomenon in the early days of battling, and it had saved his untrained butt countlessly. But, it was among the addicted emotion that drifted away as he strengthened.

Time, nevertheless, did not let it fade. Saitama acted on instincts.

He dashed toward Tatsumaki, who, having her concentration locked on him, cried and lit up in viridescence. Before she could react, though, he arrived by her side and grabbed her by the wrist, popping the surfacing psychic like it was a mere bubble.

Her jaw slammed down. The male did not even cast her a glance as he raised his fist and… punched right through the wall of the spacecraft!

Her brain short-circuited. Tatsumaki did not as much as twitch as he pulled her through the consequential crater directly into the wormhole. The rocket soared past them at a blinding velocity.

It wasn't until her bodily barrier reappeared in protection against the sharp winds of the Continuum did her conscious return from her trance. "WHY THE HELL DID YOU…"

*BOOM!

From afar, a wave of energy swept across the tunnel that was within space itself. The receding spaceship vaporized as a terrible shudder resonated through the Continuum expanse at a startling frequency. A rare feeling long since felt streamed in Tatsumaki's body, like… that time when she was strapped to the table of the underground lab in the midst of a giant earthquake as _they_ all ran out…

A scarlet light originated from the distance. Before she knew it, it had stretched above her head and across the entire shaft. A second later, thousands of similar light dazzled through the wormhole, adding deadly cracks to the construction of the tunnel. Eerie winds of chill wrung the marrow from her bones.

The _Continuum._ They were not in peaceful space, but a prohibited territory, the prohibited blanket between reality and the intangible, incomprehensible area that housed the Concepts. The Continuum was a zone of distortion, with everyday rules bent and unusable.

The region was filled with a blizzard of spatial rivets- literally broken spaces that could range from meters cubed to kilometers cubed of volume compressed into a tiny slit of blade by their surrounding.

The collapse of the teleportation tunnel, which was previously a stable spatial shortcut, was being invaded by the raw Concepts, turning it rapidly into a Continuum. If the duo failed to find a way out before it fully become a Continuum, their outcome would be fatal.

Some of the colors of the lights she had never seen in reality. They were not just the electromagnetic spectrum, but… an indescribable occurrence that existed like they were imprinted on her mind. They were almost… beautiful, the way most poisonous things were. She did not know what they were, but the instincts of survival were electrocuting her bones.

"HELL are you staring at, kid!? Fucking run!" A voice jolted her back to reality.

An unyielding force yanked her to the right. Her pupils accommodated only rapidly enough to catch a blue light rushing past where her head was and slicing through her psychic defense like it was cake. A green lock of hair floated onto her hands.

"Come on! Do you want me to carry you?" A dominant tone sounded from the right, and it was off in a second.

"YOU!" Tatsumaki barely recovered from the shock and cascaded after Saitama in a splendid green. Rage and confusion spun in her head, but it was no longer a veil for the screaming trepidation from within.

Even if she was the most arrogant hero on Earth, she knew she was no match for the universe's power, especially not right after one strand of distorted space had almost killed her moments ago.

She chased after the figure that was already becoming a dot in the horizon, unknowingly recognizing the fact that she was following _his_ lead. A cold light swiped across inches behind her, impelling shivers down her spine.

Biting her lip deeply, she picked up speed again. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, she could not catch up to the silhouette ahead of her.

The ball of radiance behind intensified. More and more cracks extended from the center in the form of unstoppable blades tearing apart the fabrics of space and anything in it.

"HEY!" Tatsumaki finally cried out, in desperation. Her ability had spoiled her from ever encountering a condition she couldn't get out off, and the one time she was in such a dead end she was rescued by Blast, so she had not a clue in her mind when she was truly powerless. She… panicked.

As if on cue, Saitama stopped, but not because of her yell. He rotated and faced the ball of light. Tatsumaki stopped beside him. Before she could speak, the Third-Limiter took a step and roared. "ONE! SERIOUS! PUNCH!"

A calamitous aura detonated from him. He lashed forward. Crossing space and time, a strand of light emerged in front of his fist and exploded.

Tatsumaki's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. Did… did he just extinguish a… what the hell was this even!? The universe? He just rivaled the universe!?

The spatial light dissipated in a shower of harmless energy. Saitama began to laugh like a lunatic as he examined his arm. A long cut extended from the back of his hand to the upper arm where blood seeped out wholly.

It was not a deep injury, but… _he was injured!_ The feeling of pain! Saitama's eyes were bathed in a hysterical glimmer. A current long lost was coming back to him. It was even more gripping than the anticipation of a true fight. It was the lust of humanity.

He cracked his neck upward to marvel the darkness above and laughed crazily. "Damn Kuseno! You said I'll be fighting monsters, not some dimensional…"  
"LOOK OUT!"

Another strand dashed madly at them, attracted by the rumbling of the energy from the previous blow. Tatsumaki materialized an enormous hand of green and grabbed at the incoming purple beam.

A deep pain shot through her mind. She watched breathlessly as the violet penetrated the full force of her attack, slowing by a mere fraction.

Saitama stepped and threw a second punch, ripping it apart while adding another tear in his shoulder. "Don't make flashy structures out of your attacks, girl. You have to focus your energy. You use too much surface area. They're good against squishy monsters, but they're useless against a true opponent."

"Don't you lecture me! How are you so strong!?" Tatsumaki retaliated without thinking. "What do we do? We can't sit here forever!"

"We punch our way out of this." Saitama replied with a burning passion. "There's nothing that one punch couldn't solve. If there is, then give it two punches."

"You're fucking hurt!" The esper pointed at the two dreadful wounds on his body, ignoring how a cyborg was pouring out blood. "How are you going to punch out of this!? It's impossible."

"No! There's a way out of everything. We need to think." Saitama, in his altered, serious form, flung a third punch that shattered another light, which in its death added an additional gash to the bald hero. "Everything has its weakness."

"Well what the f-" Tatsumaki screeched before an insight rippled across her memory. Blast's words resonated in her brain. "Wait…"

"You ain't got much longer!" Three, THREE strands flew in his direction at the same time. Tatsumaki dodged aside instinctively. Saitama lashed out with both fists while whirling for the momentum of a roundhouse kick.

Three explosions launched him back, reducing his cyborg disguise to shreds and adding more colorful patterns to his body, but neither heroes cared in the instant.

The afterimage of the sharp lights, seen from the side, pierced through the fog in Tatsumaki's logic. She might appear rash and immature, but she must not be denied for her prodigy for becoming a Second-Limit Psychic at so young. "I HAVE IT!"

"What!?" He was by her in a blink. Shaking blood from his cuts, Saitama failed to pay attention to either his pain or the thrill of combat. He was trained on her words.

The esper spoke quickly. "The lights! What are they!? They only emerged after the rocket blew up, which means that they are what is destabilizing this spatial tunnel! You can't punch through the walls of the tunnel by yourself, right? That'll be like trying to open a wormhole. Your strength isn't enough. So what if…"

As she spoke, a mirroring epiphany germinated in the male's head too as he shouted in interruption. "What if I punch with the cracks and not against them!?"

"YES! Punch through the side of the cracks! Maybe it'll be strong enough to…"

Their eyes connected. "Open a hole to reality!"

"Genius!" Saitama leaped up with an exhilaration the likes of which were not displayed in years. Another spatial light was flashing toward them.

He squinted his eyes to tiny slits. Time seemed to slow down around him. The light rushed toward his head. Saitama inclined his body and rotated clockwise, staring at the incoming rift.

"Pun-" Tatsumaki yelled. Saitama's fist thrust forward. An empowering aura fluttered into the distance, blasting through the afterimage of the passing ray.

Just the afterimage.

"Shit." The bald hero deadpanned. "This is nearly impossible. Hitting the side of the light while it's moving is like trying to snipe a bird from the other side of the hemisphere."

"You're the one who freaking said nothing's impossible!" Tatsumaki retorted with heavy hostility. "If it's too fast, I'll slow it down for you!"

"You're kidding, right!? This isn't playtime!" Saitama reciprocated. "You're trying to freeze space itself!? You couldn't even endure a beam by yourself!"

"You think I can't do it!? I'm the strongest esper on Earth!" Tatsumaki roared. "And damn it! I'm not a CHILD!"

"Well then do it!" The male pointed. Another light was slicing at them, a torrent of similar fractures following. It had been nearly two minutes since the spaceship exploded. Lights were shooting around them psychotically. There was no way the tunnel could last for more than…

"HOLD!" The green sprite screamed. A solid block of extrasensory energy coagulated around the two like jello. The light contacted.

The spatial rend, as if hitting a marsh, decelerated for just a second. An immense agony inundated her brain at the collision. By reflex, the psychic let go of her concentration for a fraction under the pressure.

The writhing beam came right back to life and smashed straight through the weakness of her spell, glissading directly at her!

At the last moment, Saitama plucked her away from the fate of decapitation as it skated past. "I said you can't manage it."

"Of course I can!" Tatsumaki bellowed and thrashed away from his grasp. Her eyes blazed back up to brilliance, hair wriggling in her circle of power without a care.

Her psychic elevated, higher and higher, until it reached the highest capacity in which she was ever encompassed. In her Pneuma, she saw the forbidden zone Blast said to never cross.

But this was life or death. If she still abided by his rules, she would die. If she didn't, there was a chance. At this point, it was not much of a struggle to choose.

However inconceivable it was, the green intensified even further, until it condensed so tightly a new form of energy was born from it, like when water dripped from vapor. At the core of her brow there was an unprecedented angelic white. Like a rising sun, the esper stared into the distant neo-Continuum. A strand was fast approaching.

She threw both hands out and stretched her fingers to their extent. A pressure that would distend the body of any Mid-Second Limiter rushed out.

This was the capability of a Post-Second!

Tatsumaki was employing the force of a Post-Second at the level of Mid-Second! The stress it was exerting on her mind was beyond anything she had ever experienced. It was as if an executioner had wrested out her spine from her back and was whipping her with it at the speed of the universe's expansion!

Instantly, she thought her conscious was going to implode. Cracks spurred up in her soul realm, shattering her from the center of her soul. Right as she was about to collapse, the pearly white at her forehead dissolved into the green gleam.

As it melted, the aggressive backlash threatening to destroy its user was painted over with an ivory luminosity that turned the violent energy into a milky green.

Meanwhile, the rush of anguish was diluted into a more tolerable concussion that was a fragment more tender. It was still as excruciating as heaven and hell, but a newfound confidence surged in Tatsumaki.

She could do this. She had done it before. Eighteen years ago.

All of everything happened in the blink of an eye. The spatial rend was right above her. With all her might, she hollered. "HOLD!"

The astral vibrancy flooded the beam and contracted. The distorted space beam gurgled as it ripped apart the energy field, but it was visibly slowing!

Deep in Tatsumaki's unconscious, in the shadow of her Pneuma where even she could not notice, was a grave ravine. It had stood frozen for two decades, unchanged. It was an intangible existence, appearing only as a parasite on her psychology and not a palpable creation that can be touched or simply 'healed'. It could only be overcome by experience and understanding.

But, as her energy poured out, the seemingly permanent cliff shook rhythmically. Then, in a god-decreed miracle, the walls of the ravine were being squeezed together like the tectonic plates of her Psyche were forcing them to recombine into a perfect, flawless soul.

The rumbling did not continue for long though. Tatsumaki's Psyche stopped quaking, but the ravine was no more the same. The width of its gap had minimized by a fifth… Mending.

Outside, the spatial rend squirmed to the stop. Tangible chains of green locked on to the beam, though they were breaking by the instants. The truculent esper cried. "What are you waiting for!? PUNCH IT!"

Saitama was beside the spatial rend before she finished. All around them, the tunnel was crumbling into a hurricane of space that distorted and shredded all.

However, to the male Third Limiter, they were all invisible. In his eyes, there were only his shooting fist, the frozen light, and the shining girl.

He connected with the side of the crack of space. The fragment burst, but unlike prior. As if by arcane magic, a hole opened in front of his eyes, a hole that led to… a background of starry dots!

The ominous pessimism in the back of his head finally disintegrated with the sight of reality. He had feared that the result would not be nearly as optimistic as the esper predicted- instead of reality, he would be punching a hole _into_ the Continuum and releasing its full might! If that had happened, they would both be turned to dust in a fragment of time. No strength below the Fourth-Limit would help!

The dissipating energy of the spatial light melted into Tatsumaki's enveloping psychic glow. A torrent of occult intensity infused with an inscrutable knowledge of 'space' overwhelmed her mind.

It was beyond mystic. For a second, the esper thought she was reading and touching the universe! A temporary book of space was flipping itself in front of her eyes, revealing the bare Concept of space to her and organizing the mysterious complexity into a simple tutorial!

However, just before her Pneuma was to fully sink into the trance, a frantic shout interrupted her dreamlike contemplation.

"HELL! Don't faint right now!"

A pair of strong arms grasped her by the waist and hauled her in a direction. A rush of vigor ruffled through her body like it had transitioned between two worlds.

Quickly, Tatsumaki blinked herself back to her sense as the book finished its hurried revelation of knowledge, in time to catch the closing of the spatial gap. Around her were the billion specks of the night sky… of… reality.

They were back. Out of the storms of the Continuum. Into the universe.

Not shredded to pieces. Not bent to a long wire of flesh.

Safe… for now.

* * *

"You good?" Saitama waved his hand in front of Tatsumaki. No sound came out of his mouth, but it echoed straight in her mind. It was a sort of advanced vibration technique that was as easy for a Third Limiter to utilize as walking.

Scenes of the past few minutes whipped through her memory. Tatsumaki shuddered. She was a figment away from death… again.

A stringent migraine knocked her out of her recall and almost out of her awareness— the punishment for overexerting her psychic.

She registered their current state gradually. Thrown out of the wormhole. Lost in space. Out of AIR!

Her face darkened into the night. She was distracted by their concurrent emergency enough to ignore Saitama's ludicrous gesture. They were both evolved Limiters, so even if they were without oxygen for a few hours, their powers solely were enough to fuel their vitality.

But, even they could not live for long periods in empty space, uprooted, in the middle of NOWHERE!

Tatsumaki frowned. Immediately, a shot of pain stabbed into her Pneuma from the pale attempt to think. She bit down hard on her tongue, choking out a few words using psychic vibration, each of which was another injection of agony. "Wait… let me… recover… Idea."

She pulled her body into a meditating stance, sat down, and closed her eyes. Her left hand pointed up, while her right hand downward. Her conscious fell into her Pneuma.

Tatsumaki's astral realm was… a complete disaster, like an EF 5 tornado had trampled across her soul. The thorough, abundant green landscape decomposed to a wreckage of brown, chipped corners and broken ravages.

However, in sharp contrast, at the center of her soul, there lied a transparent, sparkling liquid that radiated a foreign scent. By it was a white speck of will-o-wisp she had, too, never seen before. But, looking at the white, Tatsumaki was engulfed in a familiar fondness.

As she concentrated on it, the sphere shook and released a tiny tuft of green that flowed into her soul, patching up a spot of brown.

It wriggled toward the silver liquid to its side, expressing a strong desire to ingest it. Tatsumaki gave the snowy ball a gentle push, allowing it to roll into the mysterious puddle.

Promptly, a reaction commenced. Like dumping sodium into water, the puddle bubbled and steamed. On the other hand, the sphere was devouring the pool that was a hundred times its own size swiftly, resulting in a geyser of green energy that was repairing Tatsumaki's realm.

Meanwhile, an enigmatic overflow of information suddenly appeared in her mind as if it was stuffed in by some complicated structure a million times that of DNA. In her astral realm, the foreign information took the shape of thin tangles of strands, as if a product of spider webs.

The strands wrapped around her conscious, and her vision warped away from her accustomed Pneuma which vanished without control. Lights flashed past her harmlessly. It was an eerie feeling, as if she was being teleported across…

All of the dazzles faded. Around her was an oblivious darkness. Nothing.

The _Origin_. An absent voice spoke without a source.

Tatsumaki did not know how long she had stayed until an image came into emergence in the emptiness.

The figure of a Great Man.

He was as tall as the universe itself.

He _was _the pillar that held up reality, that defined reality.

He was an utterly inconceivable being, existing only in her mind…

In his hand was a momentous ax composed of a length that was his height. It and the Man's body were the denotation of the universe's three dimensions.

The man raised his arms up, along with the hatchet. Time lost its meaning. Tatsumaki could not even comprehend the strength infused in the posture. Glancing at him sent a shiver of submission and a seer of stimulation into her that destroyed the attempt to gawk.

The ax fell. Light exploded into what was previously undisrupted blackness. The perfect completion of duality was separated by the force of the chop.

The immaculate Yin Yang divided into black and white. The Concepts of time and space, reality and illusion abruptly came to shape.

As if he had put all his life into that one hack, the Great Man crumpled. His body turned to galaxies and quantum particles, stars and cells.

Deeply in shock, Tatsumaki did not even realize when wavering lights wrenched her back to her Pneuma. She forgot how long had passed, but her internal realm was filled with a silver green so lively the vitality of which could flourish species and communities.

The angelic white and the strange puddle had disappeared. In their place at the center of her soul was an exotic prism the size of a normal bedroom.

Wait! Tatsumaki froze. A tangible bedroom!?

This was her imagination! Nothing here had a solid state! Everything was in their incorporeal form and was constantly shifting! This was a material space!?

Her mind concentrated, miraculously not aching at all from the previous overexertion. It took a period of contemplation before a flash of insight dawned on her as to what might have happened.

The mysterious puddle… that was the remnants of the spatial rivet. When Saitama breached the gaps of the Continuum and reality by puncturing the rend, the broken shards of space dissolved into her Pneuma, the power of which was surrounding and freezing it in place.

When she escaped into reality, the pressure of the organized rules, which were in sharp contrast of the distortion in the Continuum, forced the rivet to behave and, through inexplicable reactions, dissolved it into her mind.

The white sphere had an extremely familiar sense to it. It was some part of herself. Maybe an undispersed matter from eighteen years ago hidden deep. Whatever it was, it absorbed the leftover spatial evidence and converted it to the psychic power that healed her injury, which would have otherwise taken weeks, if not months.

In the process, the fragment of space, which was a part of the universe, merged with her memory and revealed… a piece of Creation? This was the part Tatsumaki was yet fuzzy about.

Was the spatial remnant like a neuron for the universe and it stored some of its eternal history? Or, was the scene a consequence of her own hallucination?

The esper shook her head instantly at the second conclusion. There was no way she could dream up a power of such magnitude. Even Blast, compared to the Great Man, was a speck of dust.

He was not a man. He _was_ God. No. He was what created the world. He was above the Gods.

And… what was the square prism in the center of her Pneuma? Her soul encircled the contraption as an ambitious idea formed. If this was what she thought it was…

Outside, Saitama was sitting across from the other Earthling, a concealed look of worry in his eyes.

The cyborg uniform he had peeled off. From the inside of the costume, he salvaged pieces of torn fabric which were used to wrap up his cuts, already healing from the stalwart genetics of a Third Limiter.

His injuries might look awful, but they were all surface lacerations, none of which even touched the bone. He was much more concerned for the childish psychic though.

Saitama was an Ichor-trainer, but it didn't take much to tell how strained she was. Pneuma damages were intangible and extremely difficult to deal with, hidden in the delicate structure of ultimate complexity: the brain.

He never expected her to help as much as she did in the Continuum, which, in all seriousness, had the potential to kill him. He had just taken a trip to the river of Hades and back.

There were the adrenaline and the thrill, but the accompanying fright was not just a flickering joke either. He was reminded why he had trained so hard in the past— for the same reason why people do most things: to simply not die.

"Did no one teach you that it is rude to stare?" A pesky voice rang in his mind in the form of psychic vibration. His pupils focused to see her glaring with the signature iciness. Unlike when she last talked, her voice was now instilled with a dense stability backed by confidence and restored power.

"Hey! You're okay! That was actually really fast. Twenty minutes." Saitama rubbed his bald head, which was now revealed for the universe to see.

"Of course! Look who I AM!" Tatsumaki scoffed and crossed her arms, dismissing the issue flamboyantly. "Now, for the real question…"

Her eyes scanned him up and down. Saitama, suddenly aware of the lack of his disguise, sighed. "Uh-oh."

Tatsumaki's eyes trailed into the distance. "How the hell are we going to get on land?"

"Ohhh…" Saitama coughed, a hint of ambivalence crossed between disappointment and relief mixed in his eyes. "I thought you were going to ask…"

"Who _you_ are?" Tatsumaki snickered. "Fine. I guess since you're not too much weaker than me, you deserve for me to know your name."

The male hero raised an eyebrow. Was she… you know what, he'll overlook her blindness this once since they had bigger problems to deal with. "Saitama. My name is Saitama. What's your name again, child?"

The esper trampolined up and growled. "I said I'm NOT a child! I'm twenty-eight, you weak… you egg! I am _the _Tatsumaki!"

"Hmmm… never heard of it." Saitama tilted his head and pondered.

"'IT'? I'm not a thing!" A vein popped out of her forehead. "Then how about Tornado of Terror!?"

The bald man scratched his head. "Uhh…"

Tatsumaki's eyes twitched at a convulsive frequency. "You son of a…"

"Watch it." Saitama dangled a finger in front of her eyes. "You already have a strike."

"Strike one my ass! Are you going to cooperate or not!?" The esper slapped the anatomy away in vexation.

"You started it." Saitama deadpanned. Seeing her building aggravation, he whistled as if the ticking oxygen clock was fictional.

"Why can't you just listen like when you were in the space tunnel?" She exploded at him in a fit of pique.

Seeing fumes coming out of her nose, the male finally decided to stop teasing her. He was slightly worried that she'll fall into a stroke had he not terminated his replies. Pulling his pair of pinna apart frivolously, he invited her to continue as he was on 'all ears.'

Tatsumaki glared for a few seconds before turning in a direction. "Forget it. I'll just show you."

"Women are so troublesome." Saitama muttered.

"I heard that!"

"..."

"% !"

* * *

A few minutes later, Saitama sensed something approaching at a very high velocity. Tatsumaki huffed. "It's here."

"What?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, a large, icy comet the size of a small cliff entered his horizon. It sped after them until it was a few kilometers away, jolted to a halt in an outline of green.

Tatsumaki dashed off. "Come on! You don't expect that we walk to wherever we're going?"

Saitama raised an eyebrow and landed on the asteroid after her. "What does this have to do with oxygen?"

The esper waved. A tangible dome of green materialized above them like an upside down bowl. Tatsumaki smirked in triumph. "Ever heard of photoelectrochemical water splitting, Mr. So-Called Adult?"

Saitama regarded her blankly for two seconds and stuck his pinky in his ear to drag out a stew of its product. "Come again?"

"Can't you just…!" The psychic turned away in repugnance, but a glimpse of his expression of being at a complete loss satisfied her enough to not pursue the complaint. "It's basic chemistry. Water is made of two hydrogen and an oxygen atoms. Comets have ice. All I need to do is simply supply them the energy for some oxidation-reduction processes."

Saitama comically sweatdropped. "You don't look like a classroom genius…"

"Did you just call me stupid!?" Fire spurted from her eyes as she spun. "I'm a great student!"

"So you are a child!" Saitama slammed his right fist into his left palm. "I knew it!"

"You… GAAHHH!" Tatsumaki bit down so hard her teeth were on the verge of cracking. But, as she was simmering, a comeback entered her brain. Her expression jumped. "Aha! A graduate student! Take that!"

"You? A grad student?" The Third-Limiter's eyes traced her petite frame judgingly. "What's nine plus ten?"

"..." Tatsumaki's lips twitched. It took all in her power to restrain herself from shouting out the _obvious_ answer. "SHUT UP! You wanna breathe or not?"

Saitama gestured flippantly. Touching his chin, he evaluated that he had found another of her weakness.

Scoffing, Tatsumaki raised a hand, good mood long gone. Her fingers snapped, and the exterior carpet of ice and snow vaporized. The vacuum was replaced suddenly with a concentrated reservoir of oxygen blocked in by her barrier.

"See! Magic!" She grinned victoriously. "You may punch hard, but you can't do something cool like that!"

Saitama took a deep breath, before his brain started to blast the boisterous alarm of his sixth tense. His body tensed. A flash of knowledge crossed his mind as the fragments of high school chemistry came to him.

The law of conservation.

"Hey… Tatty, you said that water is made of oxygen AND hydrogen?" Saitama ignored the dirty look and continued in a solemn tone. "Ummm… so where's the hydrogen gas? Isn't that supposed to explode easily… especially since we're in pure oxygen?"

Tatsumaki's eyes widened.

At that moment, a shard of rock bounced away from the comet in its altering momentum and collided with the esper's shield, which propelled it back downwards.

A spark generated from the friction of its impact with the ground flew upwards.

*BOOOOOOM!

A giant fireball lit up in space and combusted. A yellow and a green beam of light dashed out clumsily.

"FUCK!"

"Strike two!"

"... SHUT YOUR HOLE!"

* * *

**Three hours later…**

The duo were riding on a second comet, with a similar green dome enclosing their heads. Saitama had laid down on the surface of the rock with a leg crossed over another one, a posture made possible by the artificial gravity Tatsumaki had induced.

On the other hand, the psychic was sitting in a more ladylike position on a throne she carved for herself out of boredom. "Are we there yet?"

Saitama yawned. "I swear…"

"Are we there yet?"

"Shut up."

"Are we there yet?"

"Shut up."

"Are we there yet?"

"..."

Tatsumaki snorted. So there _was_ a time when even he couldn't find a retaliation. "I'm hungry."

At her mentioning of food, corresponding babbling rumbled from both heroes' stomach.

"You have a point." Saitama concluded. "This comet is traveling too slowly."

"What do you me…"

The Third Limiter shot out of her psychic bubble and slid to the edge of the asteroid. He placed both palms at its side and cried. "ONE! SERIOUS! PUSH!"

A formidable aura roared out against the meteoroid and propelled it at a speed tenfold into the distance. The green pixie's jaws dropped. In a yellow flash, he was back.

"Showoff!" Tatsumaki accused sorely.

Saitama rolled his eyes. "What now? You could've done the same thing easily."

The girl blinked and turned around silently. Internally, she was blushing.

How was she going to tell him that she was actually powering the comet's velocity with half of her power…

* * *

**A few more hours later**

"Baldy. I'm bored." Tatsumaki spoke in last resort to the possible solution of her ennui.

"Great." The reply was never delayed… nor wholesome.

"Hey! I got it! _You_'re boring. How do you deal with your own existence?"

"Are you listening to yourself!?" Saitama asked in exasperation. Peering at her attentive face, it seemed that she was actually earnest in her interrogative.

"Of course. It's one of the great joys of my life." She responded without the least shame.

The bald man facepalmed. "This is going to be a long ride."

* * *

**Twenty minutes later**

Saitama glanced up. She had been… _silent _for nearly half an hour. He was starting to wonder if she caught a heart attack from her previous injuries.

Tatsumaki was staring into space as if hypnotized. Saitama couldn't resist but to pick up a pebble.

*Phew! The rock went bolting at the esper's face, before it was automatically plasmarized by her psychic. "HEY!"

Saitama chuckled and chucked another pebble at her. "Wanna play fetch?"

"No!" The sprite snatched the stone from the air. An esoteric light lurked in her eyes. "Wanna see a magic trick instead?"

"Whatever."

Inaudibly criticizing his lack of zeal, she flicked the cobble in the air and pointed. "Disappear!"

The pebble vanished on command. She smirked smugly at the emotionless egghead. "Applause?"

"Booo!" Saitama snickered as he stood up. "I can do the same thing."

He threw a stone up and shouted. "Go away!"

A torrent of energy poured out and disintegrated it to dust. "Tadah!"

Tatsumaki sniggered, already predicted that he would mock her with something alike. "Fine. But can you make it reappear?"

She snapped and the previous nugget reappeared. Saitama raised an eyebrow, faintly surprised. His eyes caressed her body up and down, trying to spot where she could have hid the gadget.

"Ayeee! Where are you looking at!?" Tatsumaki squeezed her legs together and shuffled back. No men had dared to stare at her like so. She would dig their eyes out if they did.

"Nothing much." Saitama snorted sardonically.

"Better not." The esper growled.

Black lines formed on his head. Did she sincerely not get it or… "Well? So how did you do it?"

Tatsumaki didn't answer as she bent down and put a hand to the ground. "Watch this."

A blade of green sliced into the comet and carved out a rectangular prism as large as a mobile trailer, levitating it out. She touched the giant piece of rock. Then, without the fluttering of light or energy, it disappeared!

Saitama's eyes shone. This time, he really was amazed. "Woah! That's actually pretty cool."

The psychic's hand clutched. The room-sized boulder fell from nowhere and landed behind her. "Will you believe me if I told you I might have gotten a superhuman ability from the collapse of the space tunnel?"

He eyed her inspectingly. She was aligned with such sobriety it was hard for even him to doubt her. "Go on."

"I think… a fragment of space combined with my psychic. Apparently, now I have… a small storage lot in my Pneuma." Tatsumaki flicked a lock of hair from her eye. "Yeah. It's about as big as the size of that rock."

Saitama's jaw hung. It took him seconds to digest it, before jumping up. "That's not fair! I punched, like, seven of those lights! You just held one in place! How come I didn't get it?"

"So yeah… now I have an enormous, weightless backpack." Tatsumaki smiled proudly. She loved how she was getting a victory over him. "This just proves once and for all that psychic is better than Ichor."

"Leprechaun." Saitama reminded.

"AVOCADO SAY WHAT!?"

* * *

The two astronauts lied on their backs, staring at the sky without any movement. They were… numb. Utterly numb to the overbearing blackboard dotted by white chalk that they had once thought celestial.

It was now the third day in their space travel. On the first day, after hours of mindless wandering, Saitama had noticed a speck in the surroundings that was many times bigger than the others, hinting at a nearby solar system. Thus, he switched the direction and headed in accordance.

Sixty hours later, the specks were becoming enlarged, from the size of a mosquito to a bottle cap— which were actually many multitudes of magnification.

As they zoomed closer, the bald hero, eyesight reinforced with the concentration of a Third Limiter, noticed that the bottle cap was not actually one, but rather three individual suns huddled in a cluster.

He dismissed the observation as trivial and sat back down, whistling. Tatsumaki was beside him, eyes expanded and sleepless. It was not easy to sleep on an empty belly. It was nowhere near enough to kill them— they could go months without food, years in fact— but it still depressed both Limiters.

Or was it even the third day? They had stopped counting the hours in the beginning of Day 2, when starvation set in.

It seemed as if reality was forever stuck in the emptiness, before a ray of brilliant fire ripped across the space next to them.

Like a switch was flicked violently, Saitama and Tatsumaki heaved themselves from the ground with a thirsty look of anticipation. Was something interesting actually going to happen!?

Their horizon was enveloped with a second torrent of fire, this one accurately striking the comet and engulfing the entire structure.

Tatsumaki's shield cracked under the heat. Her face changed drastically and pulsed out a second shield that replaced the rusted one. Her eyes sparkled with astonishment.

She was… feeling a sort of pressure under the flame. It was not enough to break open the barrier, washing across it like waves on the shore, but it was a power she had not felt on Earth.

The green light crested outwards forcefully, sweeping it into vortices that spun away while clearing their sight.

Miles ahead, there was an enormous Phoenix rushing at them, mouth charging up another breath of inferno. The bird was as large as one of the Cities back on Earth, and its attack was no less in size.

It had sneaked up in the duo's hunger-induced inattentiveness. Tatsumaki frowned and cast a look to her right. "You go take care of it."

Saitama rubbed his neck. Like her, he didn't feel like moving either. "Aren't you supposed to be undefeatable?"

"Aren't _you_ supposed to splatter anything in one punch?" The esper retorted crudely. "Here's your chance."

The third flame arrived. The bald hero sighed and sling his fist half-heartedly. The fire breath dissipated in the face of the great force without resistance.

A light flashed across his brain at taking a second look at the Phoenix. "Tatty, wait."

"Wat!? I don't have energy for your crap!" She glared.

"You have to be the one taking care of it." Saitama turned expectantly at her. "Haven't you wondered where this thing came from?"  
Tatsumaki's eyes lit up. "A planet!?"

"Maybe, but it has to come from somewhere." He shrugged. "There's this _Nature_ episode I watched as a kid that said animals run back to their homes when they're hurt. We can trace it back to its nest and find land that way!"

"The _Nature_ channel!? Are you serious?" The esper deadpanned. "Fine. Why not? We can try that. Why don't you go and punch it then?"

"I kill everything in one punch. From its breath, I can tell this thing is only Pre-Second Limit." Saitama looked worriedly at the giant bird gliding in. "If this chicken goes splat, it might be bad…"

Tatsumaki's countenance froze. This 'chicken' was nearly as powerful as she! Her eyes twitched as she put her hands on her hips. "So? I'm not your hitman!"

"You have to go fight it and you know it." Saitama pointed at the Second Limit bird, the equivalence of a God Level Threat.

Tatsumaki growled and stuck a finger inches from his nose. "Just this once, skinhead. Because we both have to get on land."

The esper dashed off in a ray toward a fourth incoming flame, which was torn apart by a furious green Psybeam. Saitama saluted. "Don't get roasted!"

She ignored the comment and soared atop the giant bird, being much more agile than the Phoenix. The fire beast, while huge, was not too much slower than her, actually.

Tatsumaki had time only to slam down one beam before a mouthful of fire was flung her way. The psychic attack connected against its fiery surface, letting loose a flock of feathers and ember.

When her vision cleared, the Phoenix was floating oppose to her, eyes shining with the vigilance and acknowledgement of a worthy opponent.

On its back was a charred spot of baldness that failed to regenerate. A hint of viridescence lingered. Compared to its massive body, the damage was but a drop in the ocean.

It flapped its wings strenuously. Nine blasts of fire the size of a skyscraper spawned from under its wings, pouncing after her swiftly.

She huffed and opened her palm. In the altitude above her, a giant green hand materialized and closed around her, as if protecting her in an unbreakable fist.

The nine beams collided one after the other, producing a heated hurricane in space. When it faded, the pinky of the hand had been incinerated.

Tatsumaki's expression darkened. "Enough play. You had your chance."

A green blade condensed in the midst of the herculean fist and sliced toward the Phoenix.

A shocked look of fright blinked in its eyes. Quickly, it stirred its wings, aiming to dodge the attack.

Tatsumaki scoffed and roared. "HOLD!"

A green outline wrapped around the bird, attempting to grasp it in place. It struggled without success to break the restraint, the same type of which that could hold spatial rends in place.

Frantically, the fire on its body converted to an exceptional blue that soared up miles high. Within half a second, the green was melted off, and the bird lunged away.

But, its motion was betrayed by its own gigantic stature and the strain from using its special boost. While its upper body slanted away, its lower torso was not fast enough.

A psychic sword ruptured the sheen of fire and dug deep into the bird's flesh, proclaiming a furious cry through soundless space as a tremendous trail of blood spurted from the injury that was miles long.

"Running away yet?" Tatsumaki hummed. The Phoenix's aura was stained into a bloody scarlet. In its eyes was not the fright of a hurt animal, but the gruesome rage of a Second Limiter.

Its fire bellowed out, immersing hundreds of miles of space into a brilliant fireball. Tatsumaki swiftly pulsed out a green shield.

However, her normally impenetrable defense could not deter the wrath of the Phoenix. Temperatures rose precariously even within her bubble.

The esper frowned. Sixteen Psybeams flew into the currents of inferno in eight self-revolving pairs, while she used the psychic momentum to soar back away from the sun-like environment.

There was no way the Phoenix could sustain its attack for long. The bird was a stage below her, and even she did not like using such torrent of power. The backlash would cause an irritating headache.

To her prediction, the expansive fire was dying down within minutes. She smirked, victory in sight.

As she let her guard down, a spike of condensed crimson hidden in the surge of red protruded the ball of fire and rushed at her. Before she could react, the spike was already a mile from her. In the eyes of Second Limiters, a mile might as well be right under her nose.

The spike was small, but a formidable power throbbed from it. In fact, even the sea of flames behind it was less horrifying, for that the terrible magnitude of force was compressed into a tiny space.

Tatsumaki's eyes widened. Her alarm was blaring even louder than when they were stuck in the Continuum. To her disbelief, the spike was much capable of piercing through her defense, through her shield, and through… her life.

Her mind faded into a blank. Was she… seriously going to get incinerated _here!?_ To die in the hands of a being less Evolved than her!?

Blast's words came into her mind. _Your power is limited by the flaw in your Psyche and your lack of experience fighting in your own arena..._

Following, the words of a certain baldy surged into her mind, spoken not too long ago. She was using too much power spread apart. Her psychic was never condensed at a single point of max damage. It was useless against foes of her own level.

She bit down on her lip and let the taste of blood flood her tongue, which forced her into tranquility. In the back of her Pneuma, the concealed Ravine ached grossly.

If it wasn't for the Ravine limiting her abilities and magnifying their backlash…

She must find a way out! She couldn't die here! Not even the universe had taken her! She had made it through the impossible Continuum! She was only twenty-eight! HOW…

Wait! Continuum!?

Scenes of the spatial rends rocketed across her memory in lightning speed. A sudden insight flashed across her mind. In her astral realm, the green shimmer that flooded her Pneuma rushed into the center, as if by some calling. They twisted and folded into a helix shape and condensed, until forming a thin, brilliant beam that looked much like a replica of the spatial rends in the Continuum.

An unseen energy mixed with a slight Concept of space leaked from the spatial core in Tatsumaki's Pneuma and into her newly formed rend.

Her eyes snapped open. The hot, glowing spike was a hundred feet from her. In a Second-Limiter battle, such distance prohibits nearly any action.

The esper opened her mouth. A green dazzle soared out at the speed of light. There was an eerie calm in her expression, which was still haunted by leftover panic. A whisper snuck out of her mouth. "Spatial Rend."

The green dazzle was even thinner than the spike in comparison, but it stabbed through the fiery attack like a needle through pudding.

Time seemed to freeze in the contact of the two attacks. Tatsumaki shivered as a cold ran down her spine. If they were to explode this close to her…

But instead of detonating, a tube of black formed in the path of the needle, through the center of the spike where the spatial rend had punctured.

The vermilion blaze collapsed onto itself, into the microscopic black hole created by the Concept of space. Within a second, the entire spike crumbled and dissipated, leaving a wide-eye esper in place.

She had acted on auto-pilot in the last five seconds. Her intuition was congratulating her on realizing a new move, one infused with the power of the universe itself. She stared, still in shock.

Not only was she able to discover an elite manipulation of her psychic, one opposed to her amateur usage of simple punches or slams, but she also found another use for the spatial core!

In fact, the spatial rend was so powerful only because of the slight Concept of space that the core had merged with the attack. It was what gave the attack its soul! The attack was no longer a mortal attack, but it was shaped, ever the slightly, by the will of the universe.

The spatial rend shot through the tumbling sea of fire. A scream of anguish rang through space, and the flames dissipated a second later.

A frenzied image was darting into the distance, while leaving heavy trails of blood that smeared the stars.

A yellow flash was by her. "Good job! Chase!"

Tatsumaki, just coming out of the astonishment of the power of her new move, took a glimpse at the comet. "What about…"

"No need. Whatever this is, its nest must be near!" Saitama grabbed her arm and sprinted toward the bird mercilessly.

* * *

A fiery red darted through the emptiness of space. In its path, meteors shattered and were pushed away like dust, as if they were fragile sandstones.

However, the seemingly unstoppable stream of light was not nearly as potent as it appeared, a trail of its vaporized blood seeping behind.

Following the scent were two flashes, one of yellow and one of green. Compared to the rush of the scarlet dazzle, their travel was much more composed, warping around space debris gracefully.

"Wow. The chicken still hadn't bled out yet." Saitama commented absently. The gaseous odor of blood undetectable to the most elite machines on Earth was as obvious to him as his own sweat. "We really can track it to its planet."

"Are you kidding? Have you ever heard of a Second-Limiter bleed out? Plus, that's a Phoenix. They're known in lore for regeneration." Tatsumaki rolled her eyes. "In fact, she's probably healing."

"Maybe." Saitama shrugged. "But maybe not. Her wounds should be closing if she is."

"We _are_ forcing her to fly very fast." The esper remarked. "How much time has it been?"

"Eight… hours?"

As the estimation left the bald hero's mouth, the Phoenix turned sharply and headed to her right. In her new direction, there was an orb that was becoming increasingly bigger.

In the eight hours, the Phoenix had led them deeper into this bizarre triarchic solar system that they were initially flying towards.

In contrast to Earth's system, this solar system had three suns, and they orbit around each other in a queer fashion. Each of the suns was a vertex of a triangle, and the triangle rotates around its center point in a gravitational deadlock without the formation being ever broken.

What followed its perfect synchrony were the twelve of the thirteen planets of the triarchic system.

Each of suns had four daughter planets that outlined a tiny shell formation in the outer part of the vertex facing space. The formation was like a quarter of a circle that tightly fit the curve of its star and guarded against galaxial invaders. Like noble knights, the planets themselves never intruded the inner triangular territory, but rather had a constant velocity that matched the triangle's rotation.

The three groups of planets never interfered with each other. In fact, they barely see the other two suns, their vision blocked by their own star. The last of the thirteen planets were the only outlier that saw the trio in its entirety. It revolved in a massive circumference around the entire triarchic system and took on the duty of marking the system's border of domination.

And so, the delicate and remarkable spatial anomaly spun, for the last billions of years, sculpted by the hands of physics and possibility.

When Saitama and Tatsumaki first flew toward the stars, they did so by simply assuming that they appeared the largest, and therefore the closest, not realizing that they were really three stars in one.

In fact, neither of them had ever heard of a triarchic solar system before— perhaps a binary system, with only two stars.

As they moved in on the stars, they also noticed many things peculiar about the structures, the most significant of which being that one of the suns was pure _black_.

From afar, it was brilliant, but the radiance was only caused by electromagnetic rays out of the color range. When they sped nearer and nearer, the sun became dull, and eventually deformed into an obscure blackness that could swallow the souls of all mortals.

On the other hand, the two visible stars were yellow and green. Unlike Earth's sun, they were not blinding to the retina. They appeared almost as if they were… inhabitable.

The Phoenix was zooming toward one of the planets in orbit with the green sun. No, rather, she was diving in the direction of one of the silver planet's moons.

The moon was many times smaller than its companions, being at merely a tenth of the volume of Earth's moon, which were the average size for the others.

As they approached the runt of the satellites, both heroes noticed there was something bizarre about it.

The moon rotated in complete synchrony with the silver planet, with one side constantly facing the silver planet and the other into space. What's more, its rotational speed was exactly the same as the planet, which meant that the sun was eternally blocked by the planet! Light would never reached the tiny moon!

However, instead of being trapped in complete darkness, there was a lit green dome that covered the back half of the moon facing the depth of space, providing it with the precious light against the oblivion suffered by the opposite bisection.

At the center of the brilliant dome was a tall pillar that extended outwards. It was most likely as tall as the radius of the moon itself.

No, it was no pillar. Growth spurted out of the gargantuan structure and covered a tenth of the moon's altitude in the forms of leaves and masses of green. It looked as if it was the astronomical version of a plant bulb, with the bulb being the moon and the stem being the gigantic tree that defied logic.

The Phoenix fluttered toward the tiny moon with a suddenly increased speed, desire of life strengthened exponentially at the sight of home. Saitama and Tatsumaki exchanged a glance and accelerated.

However, to their surprise, they had underestimated the fire bird, who had hastened her trajectory to eight times her previous speed. Before they could catch up, she melted into the translucent dome and entered the moon, disappearing from their sight.

"Green? This is an imposter." Tatsumaki snickered and dove after her without hesitation.

Saitama's face modeled his common blank. "Should we spare the chicken for leading us to land?"

"No. I want turkey for dinner." The esper growled and rubbed her stomach.

"You have a point. It'll be like Thanksgiving." The Third-Limiter replied. "We're thanking by having it become our meal. Perfect."

Tatsumaki decided that she had bigger issues to handle than trying to comprehend his 'immaculate' logic. Instead, she was pouring power into her shield, which was to contact with the hood of the tree right…

*SPLOOSH

She soared through the dome without effort. To her amazement, it was a surface of hovering, intangible light that served no protection at all— only a distortion for sight.

There were some branches and leaves in front of her, but she slapped them aside easily. They were… actually just normal leaves! No tricks!

A second later, Saitama came crashing down beside her, with a leaf comically stuck to his head. He pointed nonchalantly toward the apex of the giant tree, which were some distance away from where they had breached the makeshift atmosphere. "Dinner's that way."

"I'm not blind!" Tatsumaki snapped in response. "This is my kill. Don't you dare steal it!"

Saitama raised his hands in mocking. "Woah. So we're not sparing the chicken anymore?"

"Didn't you agree to turn it into a turkey dinner!?"

"So? It's still sparing it."

"I…" The esper flew off instead of continuing the attempt to converse. It was too stressful.

Within minutes, a green beam found the vertex of the dome. At this height, she could not even see the ground with naked eyes.

It was impossible to imagine looking up at this autotrophic monstrosity from the ground. A senseless animal would probably think it the God of the realm and worship it for generations.

In contrary, the esper had no such reverence. Instead, she forced her psychic brutally into the massive crown of the timber, tearing apart tremendous shroud to uncover her target. A rain of greenery precipitated.

A giant hole appeared, but there was no sign of the Phoenix. The depth was remarkable. Tatsumaki spun up a second ball of attack.

Abruptly, her eyes widened and her attack froze.

Beyond all logic, the leaves that were torn off dissipated into a cloud of luxuriant energy that cluttered around the attached branches. When they touched, the branches began growing leaves and sprouting at a lightning rate, all but in a second replenishing the damage that Tatsumaki had dealt.

A crude laughter sprung from within, communicating by a vibration of brainwaves that conveyed her meaning that ignored the language barrier. "Scram, tiny creatures! I only lost in space because I mistook you. Now, I am in my terrain! You cannot touch me! I am unbeatable here!"

"Oh?" The duo looked at each other. "Why is that?"

"Hahaha, clueless pygmies! Since I've inhabited this moon, the Great Parasol Tree has helped me spread my flame to all parts of this hemisphere! It is my ultimate defense! There is not a thing that can rupture the security of the Tree's essence!"

"I don't know what our dinner is saying, but it seems pretty good at flexing." Saitama sniffed. "I think I should go in for the kill here."

"Don't you dare!" Tatsumaki retorted instantly. "Shouldn't you already be used to monsters overstating their accomplishments?"

"...Yes. They always turn out a disappointment." Saitama sighed. "They never last more than one punch."

"Foolish critters! Even if you are stronger than me, you cannot penetrate the Parasol! Not even the Dukes of the planets could overcome me here. Perhaps the three Monarchs could defeat me, but you have no chance! Now flee, weaklings!"

"Quite some talk for a chicken who dares not even come out to face me." Tatsumaki gave herself a mental high-five for the vernacular spin.

"You! Fool, I shall not waste time on you! If you think yourself so mighty, come through the Tree!"

"I WILL!" The sprite roared and pulsed out a massive whirlwind that ripped apart a mountain's worth of twigs and foliage.

As soon as her psychic tornado dissipated, the ravaged greenery collapsed into a heavy aura that was reabsorbed by the Parasol Tree, which rejuvenated its growth in a matter of seconds, as if nothing had happened.

A wave of smug laughter bellowed from within. "Just quit, you shrub! You will never get in! I am the Parasol's first owner, and I am its last! Nothing can hurt me here! Not Ferra, and certainly not you!"

Tatsumaki gritted her teeth, her annoyance climbing increasingly by the second.

She motioned her hands in exaggeration. Surges of power traversed her veins, stacking up one wave after another and rummaging her hair. She channeled her power to the maximum capability, a fragment below breaching Post-Second, and slammed down at the Tree.

A horrid turbulence inundated the crown and plasmarized miles and miles of vegetation. Verdant energy swarmed the sky of the moon in dazzles that rendered the eyes of all beings useless.

Tatsumaki panted heavily as her figure ascended. The blow had taken quite a chunk out of her. If she was to land a similar attack on Earth, even the Hero Association HQ would be destroyed.

However, her jaws dropped as she glanced down at the crown of the Parasol Tree. It was… undamaged. Crisscrosses of greenery still lined the skies, already healed, like her previous attack was merely an illusion.

Saitama floated next to her, a torrent of air spinning at such a rapid rate beneath his feet that he was able to sustain his Ichor-induced levitation. "Nice light show."

Tatsumaki bit down hard on her lip. A formidable current materialized as the blaze of her rage mixed with the nitro of power. A dot of angelic white threatened to make an appearance on her forehead.

The bald hero frowned and grabbed her by the wrist, pulsing his energy up her arm and effectively interrupting her next offense. "Stop. The turkey is purposely trying to tire you."

"Let. Me. Go!" The esper growled at him, baring teeth.

"Promise to not attack."

Tatsumaki glared at him. Saitama met her glance stoically. If her death stare had any effect on him, she couldn't find it herself. Her brain cooled, giving a chance for the hot-headed powerhouse to digest the situation.

The Third-Limiter, seeing that she had regained her sense, released his grasp. "You know, I can always…"

"No! You're going to steal my kill!" Tatsumaki spat menacingly. "I want to squish its body into nuggets, and turn its head into my soccer ball. Don't you dare interfere!"

"Geez… that doesn't sound like a very delicious dinner." Saitama judged. "How about this? You're at a stalemate here. I'll open a hole for you through the overgrown bush, and you can take your kill, since it's so important to you."

The esper sifted through his words, evaluating the sincerity of them. At last, she nodded. "Fine."

"But in return, I call dips on the wings." Saitama smirked.

"... Whatever."

* * *

The male took a step and cracked his knuckles. A line of vision from within the Parasol caught his motion, and its owner bellowed out a stream of laughter. "HAHAHA! Another one is coming to bite the dust!?"

Tatsumaki smirked. "Hey! Someone's calling you weak, Baldy!"

Hearing her words, Saitama's brow dipped for just a millimeter. He took another step forward. A cyclone of energy formed around him. In the blink of an eye, it had ripen to the climax of any un-Evolved Mortal power.

"Is that all you got, tiny scum!?"

He took another step. A dignified aura soared like invisible serpent guardians, shoving away the engulfing green light of the Tree. The sound of glass shattering reverberated as his power rose expeditiously. Pre-First. Mid-First. Post-First...

Step. The cyclone magnified into a thunderstorm that overtook the jade shine as the sky of the moon. Pre-Second. Mid-Second. Post-Second…

Saitama rose until reaching the apex of Post-Second, a hair away from releasing his full capacity. His aura had cleared the altitude above him of any viridescence, which was squashed tightly against its leaves.

If he wasn't worried about turning the entire moon to dust, he might even tip a bit into the Third Limit... boy had he not reached that point in a very long time.

Without looking back, he addressed the female. "The bird might be hurt a little when I break the Tree. I'm not doing this on purpose… so I still have dips on the wings."

"Wait… hold on…" A distraught voice boomed from within the plant. "Can I apolo…"

*POM!

Saitama's arm broke the sound barrier before it was even fully extended. The image of an enormous fist formed behind him and lashed toward the Tree. The second was barely over, and they connected.

*BWOOOMMMM!

The square mile of initial contact vaporized, but the shockwave was far from extinguished. It spread into the distance, breaking leaves and twigs as it radiated unstoppably. The greenery tried to repair itself, but as soon as it rebuilt, another wave of energy smashed it to pieces.

The damage multiplied and stretched until all where the eyes could see were ravaged wood and a palpable fog of viridescence that were faltering to regenerate the Parasol.

Astonishment danced across Tatsumaki's countenance, but she instantly wiped it clean, allowing no one the privilege of observing it.

Meanwhile, a screech of horror rippled across the moon, rivaling the thunderous destruction. A flash of scarlet dashed out and into the distance, trying to camouflage by the haze and failing miserably.

The esper sprinted toward the injured bird, her expression locked in deadly concentration. A giant psychic hand concretized in air and snatched at the Phoenix, imprisoning the panicking bird in a quintuple-barred cage.

The fiery fowl shrieked and pulsed out a ring of fire, scorching Tatsumaki's construction. At last, the restraint collapsed, and she flitted frantically away.

"Too late." A deadpan vibrated as a human pixie descended from the heavens, lit up in silverly emerald that resonated with her equally mossy surroundings as if she was the true dictator of the moon.

"NOooo! Please! Don't kill me! I'm too powerful to die!" The Phoenix spluttered madly. "Please! I'll do anything! I'll serve you! Please! You must want a Second-Limit servant!"

"I want food. I've been starving for days." A savage smile appeared on Tatsumaki's face. "I bet even Blast had never had real Phoenix wings."

"Wings are mine." An unruly utteration interjected, the articulator of which ignoring the darkness on the esper's face and the fear in the bird's eyes.

"PLEASE! I'll.."

"JUST DIE ALREADY!" A bolt of lightning whiffs down from above, its radius as wide as the base of a skyscraper, and pummeled into the staggering avian.

The bird let out a pain ridden bawl. From the top of her shoulder, its entire right wing dislocated and shot into the sky. Immediately outlined by green, it was flung toward the male Ichor-trainer.

"Take your damn wings!"

"Wing." Saitama corrected as he skillfully secured his prize. "Singular versus plural. One plus one equals two. They should've taught you this by now."

Tatsumaki scowled, and her fury transformed into another bolt that slammed into the Phoenix's chest, accelerating her free fall.

The bird leered up at her with the eyes of malice and hatred. Suddenly, a pulse of blue zapped from the Phoenix, which slowed her and somehow allowed her to maintained struggled flight. "You…!"

"Mmmm?" The esper hummed as she conjured another attack in her fist.

"You think you can take my life without a price!? I'm taking you down with ME!" Her words dropped with venom, but it was nowhere enough for Tatsumaki to back off.

But, something else was.

The Phoenix's body started to fledge with a purple flame that instantly released a wave of intolerable heat. The Parasol's verdant energy in the area withered and disintegrated, a feat even Saitama's punch had little success with.

The creature's own feathers and skin were burning off. The magenta conflagration was so ardent a Phoenix was melting.

A perilous premonition hollered in Tatsumaki's head. She dashed backward without hesitation.

The Phoenix was on the verge of death. There was no chance she could live, so she was determined to trade her life away for an ultimate attack! She was using her soul as fuel, hoping to take the esper with her to hell!

And Tatsumaki had no intention of exchanging her own life for the bird's!

But, the Phoenix had disappeared so fast in the globe of inferno that she had covered little distance. In the fowl's place was a condensed ball of dark purple the size of a baby's palm, but radiating with the potency of a Post-Second Limiter!

SHIT!

The esper cursed internally before channeling her energy straight to full and threatening to exceed it into Post-Second, like she had in the Continuum. The angelic white dot was in full appearance on her forehead.

Cringing at the wager of months of concussion and drained power, she goggle the purple blaze, which had finished structalizing and was accelerating toward her.

As she was about to release her psychic, a foreign energy crept out from her body and disrupted her power, neutralizing her spell in an instant!

It was the remnants of the force Saitama pulsed into her minutes ago to stop her power from exceeding her limits! And it was doing it again!

The esper was paralyzed. The deathflame was right in her face… and she was about to be hit with a Post-Second attack with only a slim shield as defense!

As her life flashed in front of her, the Ichor energy that stopped her psychic boiled and trailed into her artery. Uncontrollably, her arm hurled outward.

A giant fist of aura not unlike the one that destroyed the crown of the tree spawned in front of her and smashed into the deathflame, dissipating it to smoke.

* * *

Tatsumaki's jaws dropped. It wasn't until a few seconds later did she realized what had happened. Saitama found his way next to her, carrying a gigantic wing.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING!?" The esper immediately spun and shouted at him with rage. "You locked up my psychic cap! I could have died!"

"You? Dying to a chicken? Really?" Saitama looked at her playfully.

"Gggrrr…" Tatsumaki opened her mouth, and closed it immediately. No way was she going to admit _that_.

Noticing her stubborn face, Saitama smirked to himself. He was equally glad that he had successfully quieted her, and that his preparation worked. As for hearing her gratitude... he knew he did not have the luck for _that_.

Previously, when he first saw the eeriness of the Parasol Tree, he was slightly concerned that it might dispel an attack that could hurt the girl, so he added a pulse of his own energy in Tatsumaki when he stopped her from exceeding her capability the first time.

It would only emerge when she encountered an attack so forceful she needed to push her limits to neutralize the attack. If it activated, then _she_ didn't have to suffer the aftereffects of going Post-Second because his punch would take care of it.

Although, he didn't expect the _Phoenix_ to lash back with such a dangerous attack at the brink of her death. It was quite a scary thought, really, that an injured lower-Evolved could charge up such an offense at the cost of her life.

Speaking of the Tree…

Although it resembled miles and miles of total annihilation from first gaze, the result was actually much less malignant. The portion eradicated was only about a tenth of the Parasol, which was remote from erasing its existence.

In addition, it proved how immensely colossal the creation was.

The stupendous ravage was being replenished at a breathtaking rate, as the plant's energy finally succeeded in recombining into branches and leaves after Saitama's punch had worn off.

"Hmmm?" Saitama's eyes caught on to something in the distance where the Phoenix had burned up. A giant cloud of leftover ash flew in his direction harmlessly in an organized fashion.

Then, a mild warmth came from his shoulder. He turned to find the enormous wing he was holding igniting in an enlarging blue flare.

Gasping, he threw it into the air, more of surprise than fear or pain. The blaze spread rapidly, rendering the whole wing a pile of ash in ten seconds.

The smaller pile joined the arrived heap, creating a mountain's worth of remains. The mass of ash condensed and minimized in a blue glow. The two heroes watched in amazement as the residue was compressed until into a sphere, the size of which comparable to a military tank.

A current of wind blew by, and the surface remains fluttered away, revealing a huge, scarlet-dotted, black egg that sunk into free fall.

However, it did not travel far before Tatsumaki pulled it back with a burst of psychic. "Interesting."

"I lost my wing." Saitama poked his head over, an obvious frown carved on his face. "Well, at least there's fried eggs tonight."

"I am NOT letting you turn this into dinner!" The esper huffed. "Have you never heard about the lore of a phoenix?"

"Uhhh? I have… none of them are true on earth though."

"No kidding. They're all imposters." Tatsumaki waved dismissively. "But this, this may be real. Bl- Legend has it that a Phoenix can reincarnate from ash and return to its egg form when its soul dies. Only its spirit comes and goes. Its Ichor never ceases."

"I got it! Damn that's smart!" Saitama slammed his fist into his palm and started clapping. "So you want to raise up a second Phoenix to repay me with my wings!?"

The esper facepalmed. "CAN YOU THINK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE THAT'S NOT FOOD!?"

"I'm hungry." The male declared simply.

"Well, I-" A rumble from her stomach interrupted her words. Tatsumaki's eyes twitched and glimpsed back at the giant, delicious…

She blinked and forcefully braked her descent down the very slippery slope. "Think! If we can raise this bird up, then we are going to have a pet Phoenix!"

"How can you guarantee it'll listen? I mean, it'll be like herding a lion, but a thousand times worse" Saitama looked at his fist. "Actually, we can punch it…"

"Better idea." The esper snapped her fingers deviously. "I'll prove to you again why psychic is superior to Ichor."

Ignoring his eye roll, she sat down midair in a cross-legged position. Closing her eyes, she twisted her fingers in weird patterns.

A few minutes passed, and a silver green light shone on the top of her head. The faint silhouette of an elfish humanoid wavered in the blinking luminosity.

The humanoid floated into the air, a mystic existence mixed between reality and intangibility, and glided over to the titanic egg. A speck of green flickered off onto the shell and diffused within.

Soon, a scarlet light projected out of the egg and into the air, materializing to form the tiny anatomy of a bird, completely immobile. The humanoid moved closer and touched the diminutive dove.

Patterns of green danced across its surface, metamorphosing it to stripes of ruby and emerald. The silhouette gestured, and the mutated scarlet and verdant oscine returned to its egg.

On the other hand, the elf flashed above Tatsumaki and merged back through her skull, before she opened her eyelids.

"Done!" She stood up while dusting her hands. "I impressed a mark of submission onto its soul, so it must always follow my commands. Normally, I can't do this until I get to Third-Limit and formed a solid Pneuma that could leave my body, or else my enslavement spells won't have enough punch."

"Why? You pack plenty of punch." Saitama judged.

"No, not physical punch, you airhead! Enslavement spells require my conscious Pneuma to leave my brain to be cast, since our souls have to touch. That's basically de-rooting my psychic power, since I'm not a Third-Limiter, so my yet versatile Pneuma dissipates at a rate thousand of times faster than if my Pneuma stays in my mind. The spell only succeeded because the egg's soul was literally just formed two minutes ago. It's too weak to struggle. This is an once-and-done thing!"

"Sure… whatever…" Saitama sighed and rubbed his stomach. "Now what about food?"

"Let's get to ground. There has to be food if there's an atmosphere here."

"Are you sure we can't eat the egg?"

"WE'RE NOT EATING A FUTURE PET PHOENIX!"

* * *

When the duo descended the elevation along the bulky trunk, the sight that greeted them on the ground was one beyond any of their imagination.

An enormous crowd of lifeforms had gathered around the base of the Parasol, gawking at them with ambivalent looks.

There were thousands and thousands of beasts of all sizes that inundated the ground and painted the horizon.

"This is… interesting." Saitama's stolid expression straightened at seeing the ocean of Evolvers. Despite the numbers, they were all lined up in surprisingly organizational arrangements.

Four especially giant beings stood out from the rest, standing each in one of four directions centered on the Tree… and the heroes.

To the north was a levitating land octopus the size of a cliff. To the east was a three-headed falcon, all six eyes trained on the duo. The south had an anaconda coiling into a voluminous ball, and at the west sat a mighty mammoth that was twice the stature of his three counterparts.

Behind Octopus was a sea of water elementals, from giant crabs to floating sharks. Falcon led a flock of perched birds, and Anaconda had swarm of reptiles slithering at her rear.

The Mammoth, however, commanded only a herd of his own species. While their numbers were no match for the other three, none of the others seemed to show any domination over the ivory tusks.

The others aside from the four obvious alliance was a mass of diverse lifeforms who sat equally rigidly.

Tatsumaki panned out with her psychic and frowned. "Most of them are Mortals, but a tenth are in the First-Limit. The four in front are definitely Post-First."

"Hmmm… this might take a few punches." Saitama stroked his chin while grinning. "But here's food for days."

The esper filtered out his nonsense and increased her rate of decline, power already spinning in preparation.

When she fell below cloud level, something she wouldn't have expected in her wildest dreams occurred. The northern Octopus suddenly kneeled, bending all eight tentacles and touching his head to the ground.

Falcon, Anaconda, and Mammoth were only a second behind. Mimicking them, thousands of lifeforms bowed in a wave of moving anatomy.

A bellowing roar found its way to Tatsumaki's ears, translated through psychic vibration. "Our most humble greetings, new Governor!"

The esper's eyes bulged. "Wha… what!? What are you doing, you crazy pests!? What did you call me!?"

The entire land drowned in a quenching silence. The Octopus raised his head. "Lady Governor, please call me Octo. Welcome to our Moon. I understand that what we are doing must appear beyond queer, but I implore an opportunity to explain. In simple words, you have defeated the ex-Governor, so we beg of you to become the next ruler."

As his voice died, Saitama's figure sunk to Tatsumaki's right. "Wow! That's some weird rules. You kill the king and you become king."

"Oh! There is another of your honor!?" Octo caught Saitama's figure. "Are more arriving? Should I start my explanation?"

"Go ahead! Just us two." The esper motioned impatiently.

"Shorten whatever you are saying to twenty words or less." Saitama added. "I'm hungry."

Octo's composure faltered before he commanded for someone to go retrieve food. "May I request a lengthening of my word count if your meals are supplied?"

"Fine!"

* * *

The Moon on which the humans landed had no name. Initially, it was a barren land trapped in infinite darkness as it revolved its planet, the Titanium Cranium, apparently so since the beginning of the triarchic system's existence.

Many millennia ago, one early Duke of the Titanium Cranium sent its first batch of banished felons to the misery of darkness on the moon to serve their life sentence.

Some lived, some died, and some more joined. Exact records were lost long in history, but they were recognized as the ancestors of the moon's current creatures.

They lived in oblivion for generations, so long so they forgot the taste of light, aside from the few blinking stars that had no means of satisfying their appetite.

Gradually, they adapted, like with all difficulties. An ancient lifeform evolved the ability to harvest energy directly from the bare space. Another activated the genes to convert waste gas to oxygen. Others evolved methods to create water and heat.

Through the tens of thousands of years, they trudged through the countless tests of the wretched terrain on a road paved by graves, changing and perfecting their genetics in the infinite hazards of obscurity and emptiness.

Even so, life was barely tolerable. While their strength had far exceeded the limits their ancestors living in the comfortable planet were encased with, few had the energy to break through the First-Limit mold.

A struggling food web came in place, and thus, different alliances, which was the mold of the configuration of today. While everything changed over the eon, there was one thing that hadn't: the Parasol Tree.

The enormous tree had stood astute since the origin of their knowledge. The first felons had discovered it and tried to obtain energy from it, but they were never able to use the Tree's energy. Even if they swallow the leaves, the green energy would simply bubble out of their body and reform into branches.

Future generations tried to utilize the colossal autotroph as well, but each attempt led to another failure.

Thus, over the years, less and less attention was paid on it, until the day the Phoenix arrived.

The fiery Phoenix was the only creature any of them had ever seen who came from the outside, and the only source of bright light they had ever known.

So, they naturally swarmed the Phoenix, attempting to capture her and put her up as a trophy… until every one of them was beaten up by the Second-Limiter.

The Phoenix found her perch at the apex of the Parasol Tree. And, like a miracle, the Tree lit up from an eternal slumber. And since that day hundreds of years ago, the moon was no longer in a state of blackness.

Well, at least the half of the moon the Tree could reach its light to.

Immediately, species swarmed the lit hemisphere, attempting to gain a piece of land for their survival. Life was boundlessly more comfortable in light. The rare phenomenon they had never seen did not frightened them, as if 'light' was built in the meaning of life, like food and warmth. For a tiny moon, space quickly ran out, and bloodshed broke out.

The winners later became the current four alliances, as well as other beings strong enough to hold an entitlement of land.

Meanwhile, the Phoenix rightfully gathered the ruling claim to the moon, being the Second Limiter powerful enough to activate the Parasol Tree. The light she gave them was her crown.

If a tribe did not listen, all she had to do was to stop fueling the Parasol for a day, and it was enough for the others also deprecated to eradicate the disloyal.

And such was how the state of the moon were until the humans came and slayed their Governor.

* * *

"That is…" Saitama was at a loss. "Much, much longer than twenty words."

Tatsumaki gave him a grimace and spoke up. "In this case, won't you want revenge for your 'light source'?"

"We have no such desire. All we cared for is the light. The Phoenix never paid attention to us, so there is no attachment." Octo pointed at the Parasol Tree. "Have you notice that the Tree is already getting dimmer?

Tatsumaki did not need to squint to confirm his statement. The bright green they had witnessed in space had waned to three quarters of the brightness.

"In the hundreds of years, we have gotten used to the light, and we would do anything to keep it. If you agreed to stay and power the Tree for us, there is not a thing we won't do for you." The Octopus continued. "As long as you keep the light alive."

"Why don't you do it?" Saitama pointed out.

"We're not strong enough. Only a Second-Limiter can." He sighed. "But if any of us were Second Limit, we would've left this accursed place a long time ago."

Only Second-Limits could travel space. It was the definition of a Second-Limit, after all- to be able to break the bounds of the birth planet.

Saitama took a glance at Tatsumaki. Intricate thoughts flashed in his head, before he touched his nose with a finger. "Not it!"

* * *

**A/N: This is one action-packed chapter!**

**More world building, of course. I will explain in details in Behind the Scene about my setup with the Phoenix, Parasol Tree, the Triarchic System, the Continuum, and Tatsumaki's abilities and flaws.**

**Did someone pick up on the Shakespeare insult?**


	4. Cha 4- Preservation

**Standard Disclaimer: I want the rights to OPM as much as our moon wants light. I shall promise more than a season per 3 years.**

**A/N: Hey guys! It's been a while, but I'm back. Over the summer, I visited China, which, if you don't know, bans Google from their Wi-fi. So, I obviously did not get a lot of work done with my main source of research stripped from my hands. And, after you read this chapter, you will understand why I needed to do research.**

**Let me just say that I am NOT a biology major.**

**However, in the end, I did manage it. The chapter is a little shorter than normal, while the hiatus is longer. However, I would much rather write a piece that is well-studied and designed than one that is a lengthy, overrated draft with lowered quality.**

**So, I hope you won't mind that the update took an extra length to get around to. Got a great chapter up ahead for you! Let the curtains rise!**

* * *

**Cha. 4- Preservation**

Tatsumaki threw Saitama a dirty glimpse. "What do you mean 'not it'?"

"Exactly what I said." The bald headed hero smirked. "You are going to have to power up the giant stump."

The esper glared at him, and then up at the Parasol that stretched into the dim background. "Why!? You're the Third Limiter here!"

"Are you admitting that I'm stronger?" Saitama identified the inference immediately and threw it right back at her pride.

Tatsumaki's eyes twitched uncontrollably. Before she could start up a rant, the Ichor trainer cut her off. "Either way, you're more suited for the job. Psychic is more flexible an energy than my Ichor. Honestly, I don't even know what 'power up' means. I just know how to punch."

"So you think I know!?" The green sprite retorted immediately. "I'm not taking this ridiculous responsibility! We can fly to the silver planet. It's not much of a travel anyways."

She barely finished before a frantic voice interrupted their conversation. Octo knelt down in desperation and cried. "Please, ma'am, you can't leave! If you leave, all of us will be blinded again!"

Tatsumaki frowned. "Get up! Now!"

Octo remained attached firmly on the ground, banging his head against the rough moon terrain. The three other leaders followed the Post-First Octopus's lead and fell to the ground in submission. The crowds behind them— reptiles, mammoths, seafarers, avians, and the others— all crumpled to the ground, begging.

"Stay, ma'am! Please stay! We will all die without you."

"Ma'am! Ask for anything! We'll give anything up!"

"I lead a tribe of fifty falcons! We will all serve you, please!"

"We will do any…"

Waves after waves of pleading crashed against the esper's eardrums, sublimating her patience thinner and thinner. Saitama took a step back and casually stuffed his hands in his pockets.

A torrent of brilliant green lit up Tatsumaki's figure, converting her into a furious sun that rivaled the Parasol's luminance. "EVERY! ONE! SHUT! THE! HELL! UP!"

Her scream resonated across the cratered moon and annihilated the combined petitions of distress. A minute passed without anyone daring to move a muscle. After the echo subsided, a pin could be heard dropping from miles.

Tatsumaki burned with heavy annoyance, but one look at the crawling natives made her Pneuma swirl. She couldn't, she just couldn't unleash her inferno on them.

Maybe if it was just a few opposers, she would crush the rebelling voices doubtlessly and soar off to her own will. However, glancing down at the crowds of semi-organized tribes, she felt her heart give faintly.

She closed her eyes, ambivalence tugging at her veins. Recollections of the past flashed across her eyelids.

It was the same feeling when Blast officially took her to the Hero Association and have her take over his job when he flew off to space…

Her eyes fluttered back open, the initial rage fading away into her memory. The crowd was still bent at her feet. Tatsumaki could sense the emotions steaming up from below until it almost condensed on her heels.

Sorrow. Despondency. Hope. Revolt… They all precipitated into one simple and powerful sentence: "I want to live."

A bang of empathy rushed through her organs, lifting a seal of history that she had so deeply buried.

She stared down at her hands, white as ivory. Eyes trailing upward, Tatsumaki saw the invisible, red mark that the chains left on her wrist.

Then, a voice invaded her thoughts. "They just want to live."

The esper snapped her head up and met the steady gaze of the Third Limiter. It was one of determination, of persistence, of a bulwark so firm she had only ever saw it on one other man.

Ever so slightly, she sniffed. Baring her teeth, she snarled at Saitama. "This is all you fucking fault! And your shitty idea of following that wretched bird here!"

Not giving him a chance to respond, she switched her attention to the massive crowd. "My name is Senritsu no Tatsumaki. I command you to stand up! By the name of your Governor, STAND! UP!"

Silent seconds passed before Octo realized what her words meant. By the name of your Governor…

A flood of bliss rushed through his eyes.

He himself, as a Post-First, did not need the light, but he was not just in charge of himself. He had the entire ocean to take care of. His sons, grandsons, tribesmen, marine mates… Only one in a hundred of them have breached the First Limit. Life as the blinded would be impossible for the rest after hundreds of years of illumination.

At the same time, Falcon, Anaconda, and Mammoth all shared the insight. The four leaders bent their heads lower and hollered. "THANK YOU MA'AM!"

Tatsumaki coughed. "I prefer 'miss'."

"THANK YOU MISS!" A hurricane of chants bellowed her way from the moonlife. The esper scoffed at the noise. Inside, however, there was a speck of warmth that rose.

Even on Earth, after saving countless people, she had never encountered gratitude so pure or in such strength. The victims merely stared at her in horror after she crushed the Mysterious Beings threatening their life… like she was some sort of unfathomable monster herself.

She could read emotions extremely well. No one knew simply because she cared not to utilize the emotions.

But here, she could see the admiration in their expressions, aside from hope. The admiration of her power.

Here, in the tiny moon's arduous terrain, power is respected, not deprecated.

Here, she could be revered for what she had trained so hard for.

"You. Follow me." Tatsumaki pointed at the four leaders of the crowd, before rocketing upwards.

Saitama, observing the scene thoroughly, smirked wisely and followed her.

Behind him, Octo, the only Psychic trainer of the four, lit up in blue and formed two similar bubbles around Anaconda and Mammoth, while Falcon took off against gravity.

* * *

"First thing first." Tatsumaki grunted. "What are your names?"

The six Evolvers sat atop a huge tree branch just above the clouds to avoid the vision of those below. Still, miles and miles of foliage extended above them.

"I'm Saitama." The bald hero rubbed his head.

"Didn't ask you, dimwit." The esper snarked at him.

"Learn manners." He retaliated. "If they haven't taught you that in school, just ask."

"YOU!"

Octo coughed. Though he was weaker than the two humans, he was much more aged and experienced, and he easily identified the dynamics of the two new Governors in the simple conversation that they had already exchanged. This was a good time to interfere, he concluded.

"Miss. Sir. My name is Octo. It is passed down from generations and generations ago. It is more of a title of being the strongest octopus." The eight-legged Evolver took a look at the three other leaders of tribes. "They are Falcon, Anaconda, and Mammoth. The strongest being of each tribe is named after the species."

"For us, it is a tradition to abandon our previous names and be replaced with names of our tribes." Falcon elaborated. "The deeper meaning is that with power came the responsibility of the entire community."

"Mmmm. Okay. At least something is easy in my life." The green sprite hummed. "Like I said, call me Tatsumaki. Now, someone explain how I can power this thing."

The four natives looked at each other blankly. Octo carefully spoke up. "We… don't know, Miss."

Tatsumaki and Saitama blinked in unison. The Octopus continued. "We've never actually been on the Parasol ourselves. The Phoenix kind of… just… lit it."  
The esper facepalmed. "Fuck what I said about simplicity."

* * *

After a few hours of discussion that eventually led to a palely feasible idea, Tatsumaki rose hundreds of kilometers up to the crown of the Parasol. Its glow had minimized to a quarter of its maximum.

The crowds below had largely dissipated, most of whom going back to their territories to prevent mass hysteria from breaking out due to the sudden loss of light. Only a dozen of Post-Firsts stayed to witness the occurrence that would determine the latter half of their lives, whether a success or failure.

Tatsumaki sat down cross-legged at the apex of the greenery, closing her eyes. Her hair fluttered wildly, and a calm viridescence seeped out of her pores, before expanding through the umbrage in all directions.

Her emerald radiance melted into the sparkle of the Parasol. Internally, she forced herself into a thoughtless serenity that did not come by ever without effort.

Octo, despite being a First-Limiter, was very skilled in the art of Psychic. For decades, his power had found its cap, but the years were not wasted in the passing. Over his life, the great octopus had explored many corners of psychic manipulation and is in many ways, to Tatsumaki's surprise, more knowledgeable than her in the more intricate edges of Pneuma-training.

One of such that he revealed was how every type of power had its own unique resonance— that much she already knew— but he was much more in depth with his discovery.

Atop this much known fact, Octo pieced together a method to actually sense the resonance and adjust his own psychic to fit another resonance. His idea was for her to spread her psychic into the Parasol Tree and clone its resonance into her power.

As a result, he inferred, it would let her take control of parts of the Tree. Therefore, the first step for Tatsumaki was to find the inner resonance of the Tree and imitate it.

It was a straightforward process when spoken, but only when executing it did the esper found the procedure to be painfully complicated.

The first step of uncovering the resonance was conquered in fifteen minutes. With a few trial-and-errors, she charted the waves of signal that the Parasol was pulsing.

It was not anything the human senses could detect. Only when her psychic enclosed the foliage could she 'hear' the heartbeats of the Parasol.

However, that was about all of the luck she had.

For the past hour after she had wrapped the branches of the crown in her psychic, she had tried to replicate the beatings, to no outcome.

When she practiced the technique on Octo's psychic resonance, it flowed as fluently as trying to operate her own power. She was able to detect and sort out his pattern in minutes, before controlling her own psychic to oscillate in the same fashion.

On the other hand, the resonance of the Parasol was more complex than anything in her wildest dreams. There was no stable rhythm. It was not only filled with random accelerations, but half of the time she wasn't even able to register the sudden changes, not to mention keeping up with them.

Seventeen years ago, Blast had forced her to take a quantum gravity class. Compared to this… mess, that was cake.

Her conscious dived deeper and deeper into the Parasol's core, struggling to reproduce its signal. However, there was an eeriness to the situation that she failed to recognize.

What her attention completely glossed over was how the Tree was evolving to be increasingly trickier in its changes. The resonance transformed more and more cunningly, sprouting into an inescapable whirlpool that threatened to swallow her Pneuma.

Tatsumaki gradually released her hold on her body, her awareness unknowingly devoured by the trance that had been induced on her. She sat like a frozen block of ice, dripping with vulnerability.

Initially, all around her was a silent mass of green, but as she faded wholly into her subconscious, a brilliant speck appeared three feet away from her.

It vibrated with a surge of jubilance, its aura inundated with an ancient vitality. Compared to its vivacity, the magical self-healing leaves seemed like mere rotten compost.

The speck flashed before Tatsumaki and sunk into the center of her forehead. A blink later, there was not a trace of it, as if all had been an illusion.

* * *

"Hey! Earth to Tatsumeru!" A hand waved in front of her.

Tatsumeru, awakened from her stupor, turned to see her best friend flinging her hand in front of her. In the background was an extensive, crystal river that stretched from the start of her vision to the other side of infinity. The width was equally as impressive in her mind. The opposite shore was but a trace barely observable. She had never been there.

Slightly annoyed, Tatsumeru flicked the hand away and sighed. "What, Claire?"

"I asked you what you think about tomorrow's ceremony, and you fell into a daze gaping at Celestial River again!" Claire accused. "Why do you always stare at it? You know that it pulls our souls way too deep into our imagination!"

"I don't know…" Tatsumeru moaned. "I feel like it has always been trying to tell me something. I see another life when I watch the currents race and gush."

"Duh. It's supposed to fluctuate your fantasy. It's magical." Claire rolled her eyes. "It is the water that feeds the Tree of Ascension."

The two turned their heads to look at the end of the River. An enormous Tree rose from the ground into the night sky above, its branches tangling with the stars that grew alongside its leaves.

From their perspective, the Tree might as well be a great wall. Its foliage was the sky, and its branches were the roof of their world.

They, the Tribe of Ent, was the only species allowed to step into the territory where the Tree of Ascension's aura dominated. Since the beginning of their existence, they had been tasked to guard the sole pillar that held the sky from collapsing with the ground.

The Ascended Territory was a sacred place, and the Tribe of Ents were born from the Tree's aura to dispel any molesters… not that most of them were needed: the Tree's aura itself blocks out all who tried to enter besides Fifth-Bounders. Only they were strong enough to breach the potency of the Tree of Ascension's terrain.

The Elders called the sky the 'Continuum'. It was an area of unbound rules. The axioms of the world were broken and versatile there, with everyday Concepts that sustained life, like space and time, being torn apart and reshaped every instant.

The Tree was the backbone that prevented the Ground from being consumed by the Continuum. The Elders called the Ground 'Reality', because nothing existed if it had been consumed into the sky. Space-time would be shredded, and along it, the entirety of existence. Perhaps only Fourth and Fifth-Bounders could survive.

No one knew how tall the Tree was, not even the Head Elder. They barely knew its circumference. Millions of years ago, the Head Elder of the Ent Tribe of that era decided to go scout out the perimeter of the tree.

He was a Post-Fifth Bounder, and it took him three whole decades of travel to make a full rotation. The standard measurement had lost meaning a year in. He coined the term 'one Bound' for each year he had to travel.

Normal Ents couldn't even travel a thousandth of a Bound even if they ran their entire lives.

"The sky…" Tatsumeru muttered.

"What?"

"The sky." She repeated. "The Continuum and the Ground. Everything is so weird."

"What are you talking about?" Her friend questioned. "What's weird about it?"

"No, I mean it was so weird in my dream." Tatsumeru pointed at the Celestial River. "In my trance, I saw another life in another world. She lived in this empty space filled with different spheres of sizes. The spheres aren't big. The radii of some are just thousands of miles across, while others are millions— a little bigger."

She gestured at the sky the Tree held up. "The spheres hung in the sky, but somehow they can exist, and people live on those spheres. That's their Ground."

"Stop going on about your ridiculous dreams." Claire poked her in the arm. "That's impossible. We all know the Ground is a flat continent that is millions of Bounds. Remember the history lesson on The Daring Expedition?"

"Yeah, about the Elder who broke into the Continuum to look at Reality?"

"Mmhmm. Plus, how can spheres of land hang in the sky? It'll be swallowed by the vortex of spatial rivets in seconds."

"I said it was only a dream…" Tatsumeru laughed. "You know you like hearing about them."

"Whatever." Claire shrugged. "Are you ready for tomorrow's ceremony? It's going to be us, a few others from the orphanage, and several hundred kids from the village who had reached the age."

"Ouch. A lot more than last century's." Tatsumeru cringed. "It's going to be hell of a competition getting a good spot in the Trainer's."

"You want to be a Psychic Trainer, so it's going to even be harder." Claire smirked at her best friend. "But I know you can make it. You're the smartest Ent I've ever known."

"Wow, even smarter than the orphanage president?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself."

Tatsumeru laughed. The stress about the ceremony faded as she clutched Claire's hand tightly. "I wonder what this century's test is going to be."

"No one knows. The River changes it every year." Claire's eyes stared at the stars that were attached to the Ascended Branches. It was her dream to one day be a manager of one of those stars. "People say that even the Elders don't know."

The two Ents laid next to the Celestial River, listening to the jingling of the waves as they drifted off.

* * *

The next morning touched them faster than they had fallen asleep. The two friends traded a silent look. No words were needed to communicate the anticipation in their eyes. Holding hands, they flew off at the speed of sound toward the center of the village.

Just as they took flight, the blaring ring of a temple bell reverberated through the land. Then, another chime stacked onto the previous, and another and another, until the distant bell clanked nine times, which all multiplied into a holy typhoon that signaled the start of today's main purpose— the centennial ceremony.

The girls sped up at the regard of the alarm. They must arrive no later than nine minutes after the bell first rang— one for each time it sounded.

Mountains zoomed past, until a broad plaza appeared below the opening of a cliff. They decelerated and aimed for a landing near the corner of the gathering. It was the six minute mark after the initial siren, but the square was already filled with people, ranging from the young Ents under a century old for whom the ceremony was hosted, to the parents and teachers of respective contestants.

The village Elder sat on a raised seat at the front of the square. Two other chairs were placed minutely behind, with his being the center. On those seats were the two other Fourth-Bounders whom the village had.

Their aura fluctuated with grandeur of regality, fluttering with each's arcane interlocks of knowledge and energy. They waited until the last second of the nine minutes passed, before the leading Elder threw into the sky what was in his hands.

In the whisper of the wind, the object magnified a hundred times larger than it was, revealing to be a gigantic bell, which struck for the last time in this century, silencing the square of all excess noise.

"Welcome to the centennial ceremony. I'm sure you all know what this is about, but in compliance with tradition, I will read out the synopsis." The Head Villager rose out of his chair. His voice was not loud, but it was clearly delivered into the ears of every Ent on the field.

"The centennial ceremony is a test of your aptitude and Psyche. Your aptitude is how much potential you possess, and likely how far you will travel on this road of Evolution."

"Your Psyche is the central-most satisfaction you hold in your heart. It is what defines you— what makes you you. It is the answer to the question "Who are you?"'

The Elder took a look at the audience, most of whom were lost in his words. He smiled. "You do not understand it now, kids, because you have yet to discover your Psyche. This is what today's test will be about: finding you innermost motivation, your innermost happiness. The happiness without a reason. An axiom that stands without a fault."

The glow in the Elder's eyes stretched past the square and the plains behind it, deep into the mountains in search for lost time. The lost time when he was standing in their spot, being lectured by his Elder.

A cough sounded from behind, and his gaze sharpened. "You will jump into the Celestial River, and it will craft a test for each of you. Keep in mind that your performance will be recorded by the River and monitored by us. That will determine your aptitude."

He paused. "As for the assessment of your Psyche, come back prepared to answer my question: Who are you?"

"As per century, the top performer will receive the chance to be transported to the Ascended Branches, among the stars, to receive training from the Central Counsel."

"Good luck, young Ents."

As Head Elder's voice dropped, he stood up, followed in motion by the two Fourth-Bounders. Their hands interweaved in patterns of complication, one so confounding that a look at the spell would stimulate a migraine in the less trained.

As they finished, three beams of viridescence shot into the air and coalesced with each other. A spot of black appeared in the center and inflated until it reached the size of a ferry. Then, the black disappeared, exposing the sight at the other end of the spatial distortion: The Celestial River.

In the next moment, the young Ents all found themselves entangled in a warm, olive sparkle, before they were dropped through the opening into the River.

* * *

When she entered the water, Tatsumeru's vision was immediately filled with a blinding fog that took her conscious away from her.

When she gained back her awareness, she was staring down at… 'herself' from an abnormal eagle's eye view.

Well… if she could call this thing 'herself.'

In her vision was a small, spherical, green dot in water. Her body that she remembered had disappeared, replaced with the creation she was currently inspecting. Information that was instilled into her head told her that this was to be her body.

At the sight of the tiny dot, a place deep in her Pneuma shook. Next, a word that had never appeared in the Ent dictionary entered her mind.

Cell…

The basic building block of life…

Tatsumeru frowned in her head. What was she supposed to do with this? What kind of a test was this?

Wait! Test? What test? What was this test that she was thinking about?

A rush of confusion filled her to the brim. Who was she? Where did she come from? Why was she here?

Before she could continue her pondering, a distinct sensation rushed up her thoughts.

Hunger.

The cell was hungry. She was hungry.

At that moment, an alluring scent entered the membrane of her cell. Tatsumeru instinctively swam in the direction of the smell using a tail-like flagella attached to her cell.

Soon, she approached a pool of circular white pastes that looked like miniature marshmallows. Her cell swam onto a piece of paste and chomped it down. As she did so, the feeling of hunger disappeared, replaced with a satiated fullness.

However, Tatsumeru did not stop there. After she finished digesting the first paste, she swam onto the next and devoured it too, and then a third, and a fourth…

After she swallowed the ninth one, the fullness she was experiencing turned into a explosive pressure, as if she was being ripped. There was no pain, but still an uncomfortable tension.

It did not last long. In her amazement, Tatsumeru watched as her singular cell lengthened and broke into two identical cells. A surge of unreasonable happiness dashed through her.

The two cells, though two entities, were still both under her control. In fact, she felt even more comfortable, not at all stressed by having to deal with two independent motions.

She sent them each in a direction to consume more white paste, and the familiar feeling of fullness came again, then accompanied by the pressure of ripping…

After Tatsumeru was finished with the pool of white pastes, thirty cells floated before her. A childish felicity permeated in her Pneuma as the cells rubbed against one another and swam freely. She examined each carefully, not letting go of a single detail.

When she reached the twenty-ninth one, she caught something unusual engraved on the cell. There were two concentric circles, one laying atop another, tattooed on her membrane. Another of her cell drifted over and bounced into the circular organ to no effect.

Tatsumeru hesitated for a second, not knowing what to take of the situation, before her intuition dismissed it as harmless.

Time passed.

Her schedule followed a similar consistency. She found white paste and ate it, before wandering off in search of the next batch. As the years flickered, she grew to a total size of three thousand.

Back when she had reached two hundred cells, she decided to split her group into pairs of hundred to maximize the efficiency of finding food. It was a struggle feeding over two hundred cells with each average batch of paste.

By now, she had thirty squads of cells who had explored a wide, elliptical area. She discovered that she was positioned on some sort of bumpy, rocky terrain that seemed to continue for ever.

It was on this seemingly normal day of searching when a squad of hundred cells encountered the largest piece of paste she had ever seen.

It stood hundreds of times taller than if all three thousand of her cells assembled into a ball. Her instincts grew mad with hunger, and the squad of cells rushed the giant white paste.

As she neared, she saw peculiar blue dots outlining one of the paste's corners. A closer look at it concluded that it was… other cells!

About two hundred of the blue cells were munching on the white paste. She tried controlling the blue cells, but they had no reactions to her commands.

Her squad curiously scooched closer to the paste. Suddenly, as if a green cell had crossed the warning line, the blue cells all shot up from their spots and dashed at Tatsumeru, radiating with a dangerous scent.

Before she knew it, the blue cells crashed into her formation and started devour her cells, just like how she absorbed paste!

As her first cells were gulped by the blue cells, Tatsumeru's connection with those units suddenly dissipated. All of a sudden, she felt weaker. A spontaneous horror attacked her Pneuma, jarring her concentration.

A word escaped the confined dictionary from what seemed like eons ago:

Death.

The word itself gave her chills. Seeing her squad quickly diminishing in numbers, she issued out a frantic command: RUN!

The green cells scurried back, but the victorious blue chased after them and continued to rip apart green stragglers.

She did not know how long passed until the enemies finally retreated. Tatsumeru stopped in relief and examined her leftover cells.

A shot of pain crossed her mind. Only thirty were left of the initial hundred of cells. The most heartfelt grief flooded her and unlocked another foreign word:

Revenge.

It wasn't long until the first of the other twenty nine squads reached the injured group. Within an hour, the whole navy arrived. Tatsumeru's sight focused on the giant white paste, visible in the distance.

Attack.

Her massive military found its way to the paste. The blue pests were still nibbling away at the corner of the paste, now having grown to three hundred cells.

Her green cells, now in numbers almost tenfold, rushed the blue cells, who struck back with similar hostility.

It only took a few casualties for Tatsumeru to figure out the details of microscopic warfare. The blue's front line lasted for but a minute, before the overwhelming green collapsed their array.

By the end of five minutes, only a squadron of twenty blue remained in the encirclement of Tatsumeru's armada.

The leftover blue soldiers commenced their final round of charging. In contrast to the others of their species, they did not attack by biting. They simply rushed into the green faction, and her cells were dropping like flies!

Hmmm… dropping like flies… that was a queer statement. What were flies?

Quickly expelling the random thoughts from her concentration, Tatsumeru's attention zoomed in on the blue cells. Instantly, she noticed the sharp difference on them. In comparison with the normal blue cells, these cells had an acutely distinct anatomy: on the opposite side of the flagella, there was a heavy, rugged horn!

When the cells jammed into hers, it speedily popped the cells with their rough structure and tore through her navy's construction.

Tatsumeru frowned lightly, before her brow unfurrowed. If the blue cells had more of these mutated cells, then her victory would have come at a much higher cost. However, there were but twenty of them, and they were no match for her superior numbers.

Another green stepped up to where the previous had fallen. Shortly, the blue cells' energy wore out, and they were devoured by Tatsumeru.

As the last of the blue cells were slaughtered, a sudden sadness rippled through her Pneuma. It was not the pain of losing her own cells, but rather… the sorrow of seeing another species crashing into extinction.

There was really no reason for the abrupt depression. After all, she was the direct cause of blue's doom, and she could rightly justified her attack as an action of revenge.

But, the heartache was there, real and unmistakable. Tatsumeru's Pneuma recognized the distress and impressed a solemn mental label on it, before moving on… to food!

The prize of victory was the giant white paste in front of Tatsumeru. She did not think twice before commanding her navy, which had lost two hundred in numbers, to dash toward the delicious, unmoving delicacy.

* * *

Years passed… or perhaps they were decades, or longer?

The giant white paste had shrunk to half of its initial size, while Tatsumeru had grown to a hundred thousand cells.

While the milestone was pleasing, she had been stuck at the number for a while now. The ratio of the rate of consumption in relation with the surface area of the food was rapidly increasing. In other words, she was not satiating her cells as quickly as the cells were getting hungry.

If the trend continues, she would eat away the rest of the paste without being able to grow! When the paste was completely devoured, then most of her vany would likely starve.

It was time to find another source of food… a more stable source.

For years, she had been contemplating this fatal issue, and she finally came up with a solution.

In front of her was a squad of ten thousand cells who were shaped differently from the normal cells. On the top of their membrane was a long, sharp horn, much like the ones the blue cells had many years ago.

The first of the horned cells appeared soon after she had started chomping on the white paste, which must have contained a mutagen that triggered the horns to grow. She had a total of twenty thousand horned cells currently, and the remaining ten thousand were out guarding the circumference of the white paste from potential enemies.

Next to the horned cells were twenty thousand of another mutated kind of green cells— the ones with two concentric circles that she had gotten at the very beginning of her journey, having split to form thousands of identical copies of itself.

She did not discover the use of the circles until a very recent incident that led directly to the solution of her energy crisis.

Next to the white paste she was consuming, there were layers of rock that stretched on for as far as she had explored. Three days ago, there was a geyser of red liquid that exploded from beneath.

All of her horned guards in the radius were wiped out instantly by a severe heat at the contact with the liquid. However, there were a few survivors that she did not expect: the cells with the concentric circles that were out swimming.

In fact, they weren't just surviving, but they were radiating an expression of happiness in the magma… Ah yes, her Pneuma decided to name the red liquid 'magma'.

Thus, Tatsumeru left them there. It only took a few minutes until the circled cells responded with a feeling of satiation, as if they had just eaten. Shortly after, some started splitting, while others floated out of the magma and spat out a white object.

A closer observation concluded that the white object was actually paste! Their food source!

She took her surviving cells out to examine them further. An hour later, when she switched her attention back to the magma, it had disappeared. All that was left was a solid rock at the bottom of the ocean.

However, she had seen enough. A daring plan surfaced.

* * *

Tatsumeru finished her recollection and focused on the cells in front of her. Keeping half of her attention still on the giant paste, she commenced with her operation.

She decided to call it Mission Potato. She had no clue what potatoes were, but her Pneuma revealed that apparently they were a good food source, which was exactly what she was aiming for.

The navy broke into ten groups, each containing a thousand horned and two thousand circled cells, before they spread out onto different rocks.

The horned cells pointed their weapon down against the stone and drilled. At first, it was extremely hard to break the surface of the boulder, but as the mission continued, Tatsumeru grew to be an expert at it.

For example, she discovered that if she rotated as her horn pressed down, it was much more successful than banging her horn against the rock.

It took Mission Potato three decades to drill through the rock to hit the surface of the precious red liquid. However, as the first group punctured through, a torrent of water rushed in and extinguished the magma immediately, turning it into more rock. As a result, the operation halted.

It took Tatsumeru eight years to come up with a solution. She figured she needed a way to block the water from making contact with the red liquid, and so she needed a sheet of sorts of cover the hole she had drilled.

She experimented with different things, such as cutting up the white paste to cover the hole. That ended in a disaster, with the paste burning up in the magma's heat, before letting the water through.

Nevertheless, she found the perfect answer: her horned cells. If she could find a way to joint the cells together, the alliance of horns would become a mattress tough enough to resist the pressure of the water, while their backside could be protected from the magma's heat by a layer of circled cells.

The process to attach cells to each other took the majority of the time. Eight year later, she was looking at the finished product: a bilayer covering made of horned and circled cells.

Let Mission Potato restart!

Tatsumeru carefully moved the covering on top of the hole on the rock, before pumping the water out, leaving a vacuum of space.

Then, she commanded the horned cells to puncture the last strip of rock and braced for the result.

The red liquid emerged. A wave of heat simmered out and was absorbed by the circled cells, already prepared. She waited.

One. Two. Three…

The bilayer kept the water out, while the circled cells continued to take in the heat. Minutes later, one of the cells squeezed out a white paste, which fell into a neighboring horned cell.

A flood of happiness surged into Tatsumeru's Pneuma. She had food!

In honor of Mission Potato, she shall name this matress-like contraption Walnut.

* * *

Five millenia later, the scene around the rocky terrain was quite different from before. The giant white paste was long gone. Instead, dozens of green, wavering shrubs grew out of the rocks.

The outer layer of the shrub was a hard shell that protected against sudden currents that brought debris.

Tatsumeru spent an entire century improving the horned cell's anatomy. Now, its outerior membrane was covered by a slim mineral she extracted from the rocks, while the horns were hundreds of times their previous density. The rocks that took years to break through thousands of years ago would now require a mere click.

Within, a tunnel system ran through the shrub and roots for transportation of water and food. The wall of the internal system was covered by circled cells to protect against the extreme heat. The concentric circles, which had only took up a tenth of the cell's surface, had now expanded to take over half of their cells in order to maximize efficiency.

The normal cells were stored in a special area, most of them dormant. Tatsumeru did not abandon these cells. Instead, she placed special care on them, making sure they did not die of the heat, after witnessing what potential they had.

In the first years of being exposed to the red liquid, some of the normal cells, after ingesting the magma-sourced paste, turned from green to bright lime. They became immune to the heat, so she placed them near the magma to see what would happen.

In a random, unrelated incident where a foolish group of cells tried to attack her outerior shrub, she discovered that the lime cells could spew a stream of yellow liquid that was extraordinarily acidic. It melted through the offending cells' membranes in an instant.

Her Pneuma called it 'sulfuric acid', a liquid condensed from the gas that bubbled along magma pools. It was so toxic, her own horned cells could barely survive the liquid.

Thus, she gained another method of attack alongside the horned cells, though this one took much longer to recharge. She decided to name this type of cell 'Toxic Positivity'... or 'Tox Cell' for short.

Tatsumeru, after that, concluded that the normal cells were the base of all evolution. She shall call it 'stem cells'. On the other hand, the cells that were already in shape, like the horned and circled, were harder to manipulate.

However, that wasn't to say that they couldn't, because the circled cells did just that. After being exposed to lava for such a long time, they gained the ability to consume and store lava within their membrane in a special container that not even Tatsumeru was sure how it came into place.

She had yet to test out the power of the lava yet, but she still remembered how years ago, a mass of her horned cells were cleansed by a single burst. She named these cells 'Nuke cells'.

* * *

Life continued for another tens of thousands of years. Her shrubs were filling up the area's rocks, while her roots underground had extended deep into the magma, expanding to synthesize an intricate maze concealed by only the stones above. Her cell count had just breached the trillions, and her body now stretched over a horizontal space of many square meters.

It was a normal day of activity for Tatsumeru, before she sensed something swimming toward her. It wasn't abnormal for creatures to come near her. In fact, she had thousands of species of bacteria inhabited on her outer shell, attracted by the heat.

At first, she had used them for proteins to grow, but later she switched to bigger targets like small fishes. As she switched her targets, she also invented a new type of flexible cell that could turn the shrubs into giant tentacles that easily latched onto her now bigger prey.

To supplement her method of predation, she also engineered a scent that attracted fishes of all kind to her. It led to a reaction that even she did not foresee.

The fishes began using her territory as a breeding ground, despite the danger the arose from it. She had watched in fascination how the process worked, before concluding that she shall spare half of each population each time they arrived.

They were entertaining creatures.

And now, even small fishes weren't interesting to her anymore. She made a rule to only attack when there was a prey that required more than five of her tentacles to strike.

Thus, schools of small fishes flourished in enormous population in the area where she rooted, attracted to the planktons that thrived on bacteria. An ecosystem was built.

When Tatsumeru first realized this, an innate happiness soared out of her. She did not know why she was so pleased at seeing the creatures circling around her, but the emotion of joy was unequivocal.

It was puzzling, in fact. First, since she stopped hunting them, they no longer provided her with food, or anything useful for that matter. Second, they were, at one point, her competitor for resources. But, either way, she still felt greatly delighted at seeing them, to her immense confusion.

While the ecosystem was established, there was no big fish that remained. Big creature was a rare occurrence in these days. The ocean was still composed mainly of small fish and unevolved shellfishes. Thus, she was quite surprised when she saw a huge pool of slime to be the lifeform that she detected coming her way.

The slime was half as large as her own size, and it was a flexible ooze that repeatedly change color as it advanced her way.

When it reached the border of her territory, it latched onto the ground and squirmed across her rocks, sucking up the bacteria and plankton wherever it rolled over.

The small fishes, seeing this horrifying predator, fleed in fright, but they only swam a few meter away before the slime released a torrent of rainbow liquid. When it touched the fishes, their eyes rolled backwards and their stomach upward, dead.

Tatsumeru, seeing this, was roasted by a burning anger that appeared out of nowhere. Instinctively, her tentacle lashed out and whipped against the slime, dispersing a pool of ooze reaching for the dead fishes.

The scatters of sludge did not die, however. Instead, the main body of the slime rolled over the pieces and reattached them effortlessly, while switching its attention onto the tentacles around it. Jets of rainbow liquid soared out of its pores toward the limbs.

Poison.

A new word appeared in Tatsumeru's dictionary. Most of her tentacles dodged the attack, while one of them was splashed with the poison straight-on.

She expected the shell to stop the poison, just like her acid. She was thoroughly stunned when the poison found a way past her shell and diffused into her internal tunnel.

Within seconds, her circled cells died and decomposed. Half of her massive tentacle lost function in fifteen seconds, and the poison was still spreading downward into her underground channels!

Before she knew it, the poison came into contact with her storage of nuke cells, at the base of the tunnel. She had no time to respond before the poison penetrated the first cell, and…

*POP!

A dozen of nuke cells blew apart, dispensing lava across the handicapped tunnel. Tatsumeru watched in amazement as the lava vaporized the poison at the mere contact.

Seeing this, a wild idea came into her mind, and she instantly put it into execution. From below the surface, the mass of circled cells heaved buckets of lava up the tunnels into the tentacles, protected internally by her fire resistant cells.

On the outside, the slime was prepared to launch another poison attack. This time aiming for all of the tentacles, it released a dark fog that spread through her territory.

As the waves of poison started to spread, Tatsumeru shot the lava through her tentacle opening.

*BOOM!

The result was nowhere near what she expected, but she achieved the same effect. The giant pool of lava incinerated the poison without hesitation, while burning off more than half of the slime's mass. Then, it evolved into a massive steam explosion that shook even the boulders to which Tatsumeru was attached.

When the bubbles cleared, pathetic sludges of ooze remained on random rocks, unmoving. Over eighty percent of its mass were vaporized in the last exchange of offense, and it was at the edge of death.

Seeing the slime in such pitiful condition, Tatsumeru felt a surge of ridiculous sadness. She already had her next wave of lava in store, ready to finish the slime off.

Just as she was about to release the torrent, a distant yet powerful feeling rushed her Pneuma. It was the same emotion of grief that erupted when she killed the blue cells into extinction, thousands and thousands of years ago.

Against her better judgment, she disarmed her tentacles. Instead, they wrapped around the rocks the different puddles of sludge landed on and dumped them into one pile.

Slowly, the remaining slime managed to shuffle across the short distances to recombine, one piece at a time, until it formed back into a small piece a fifth of its original size.

Tha… thank… thank you.

A wave of water bounced harmlessly against her shell, turning into a series of information that was pieced together in her Pneuma.

Tatsumeru stared in disbelief. She just blew this guy up, and now he was thanking her for merely stuffing what was left of him together?

Not knowing what to respond with, she extended her tentacle over and shot out a torrent of white paste for him. She had too much of it, anyways. It was proteins she needed now to continue growing.

Too bad most of the ooze was incinerated… she sighed. She took another look at what was left of the Slime.

Nah. She decided. She wasn't going to kill him. He was quite interesting. She had never met a creature who could talk… in fact, even she herself had not evolved a way yet.

Guess it was time to do so then...

* * *

Tatsumeru thought that was the last of him that she'll ever see, but it was only a year before he returned, already recovering back half of his previous size. But this time, he had no offensive purposes.

From afar, he pulsed out a wave of water, expressing the purpose of his arrival.

"Sorry… last time… thank… idea… you attack… strong… stationary… I lure… you kill… we split meat… You eight… me two."

Tatsumeru opened her mouth, one that she had just created in the last year and echoed out a message of similar water pulses in much clearer terms. "Deal. Don't lure anything bigger than your size from last time. You can take three. I'll take seven."

The Slime flashed between red and green, expressing his gratitude, before dashing off.

He returned three months later with a giant shark. Tatsumeru dissolved its face off with sulfuric acid, while Slime added his own poison into the mix to paralyze its neurons.

She got five additional tentacles from the shark and expanded her base another five square meters. Quite a good deal, she'll say.

* * *

Fast forward a hundred million years…

"BOSS! I just planted your ten thousandth base." An underwater rainbow cloud floated near one of Tatsumeru's base. A giant brain floated within the sludge. A tentacle popped out of the rocks and reached into the sludge to dispense a vortex of white paste. "Thanks Boss!"

In the hundred of millions of years, both of them had been insanely busy. After they met, they quickly established a firm relationship of mutualism. In the first century of their cooperation, Tatsumeru expanded her first base to a size of three square kilometers, which was when she decided to stop the expansion in one place.

She gave Slime a giant load of her cells, filled with paste, and asked him to carry it to another location at least a hundred kilometers away from the current foundation. It would be her second base.

Slime, whose total size had grown to a square kilometer, happily complied. It meant an additional home for him too. Over the years, he had long recognized the safety of Tatsumeru's territory.

By the time she had nine other bases spread across the ocean floor, Slime had grown to over ten square kilometers. Years ago, he had mentioned how much of a difficulty it was to drag his mass around.

He couldn't just chop parts of it off either. He had only one central nervous system, and so the chopped off mass would just be a piece of paralyzed ooze.

Tatsumeru came up with an idea for him. After analyzing his one CNS, she recreated it in smaller terms— a brain. Its only ability was to receive and transmit electrical signals, as well as processing the signals and transducing it to motion.

The one central nervous system Slime had operated on electricity, and her solution fit immaculately. A brain is placed in each of the mass he chopped off. Like signal towers, each brain bounced electric currents off themselves to a more distant mass, while registering commands and relaying back to the CNS.

This was only the first version of the device the two came up with in the countless years.

Over the eons, Slime also figured out a way to consume rocks and extract nutrients from the ground directly, without having to consume other creatures for proteins. From there on, the two collaborated for millions of years to grow at an unprecedented pace that resulted in their current mass, all while not disturbing the environment.

By this point, millions and millions of species were dependent on them. In the beginning, the bold creatures were simply utilizing the duo for warmth. Later, Tatsumeru condensed the extra white paste she was making from the miles of roots that had extended into the magma's core into edible fruits of pure sugar for the seafarers.

On the other hand, Slime added his own rainbow fruit to the tentacles, composed of excess proteins. They themselves were the heart of thousands of ecosystems, the ruler of millions of species, and the worshipped hope of billions.

The ocean, the world was flourishing in an evolution of beauty, until the day the armaggeddon descended.

* * *

The sky lit up in crevices of scarlet, as if the gods had unleashed fury on the realm. Thunder crackled with the goal of erasing the impurities, and enormous asteroids the size of Gilead ripped through the atmosphere.

The doom raced down in unstoppable tracks, crushing all that were in their paths. Nothing could deterred them— not even the duo.

Under the gavel of Hell, millions of lifeforms were evaporated by the minute. Tatsumeru, who had spread herself over the ocean floor, was forced to witnessed the tragedy in its entirety.

The horror was totally unfeasible to simulate if she didn't see it in her own eyes. Death was across the land, perishing everything in its touch. The cries of mourning and deceased spirits of woe replaced water as the ocean.

"NO!" Tremendous anguish roared in Tatsumeru's Pneua. Pain streaked out from the deepest chasm of her conscious. She was at the verge of losing her mind.

Slime's frantic words burst out. "We have to save them."

"Yes! Yes, we do!" Tatsumeru clutched his mass. "If we can endure this disaster, we can repopulate!"

As her voice died, her eternally stationary bases across the ocean all shook at once, tearing their roots from deep within the mantle. Their movement over the tectonic plates quaked into a colossal hurricane that crashed against the fiery skies.

The bases, filled with rainbow plaster, twisted and reassembled into reckless ships that soared across the floor, while dodging fatal boulders that pierced through the ocean surface.

Giant tentacles littered with suction cups lashed out and grabbed at different species, before pulling them in and sealing them in the vessel.

Dozens of ships plummeted under the wrath of the damned deities, but even more struggled on against the current of fate, carrying out their inexcusable mission. The mission assigned to them by her heart.

A ridiculous mission inspired by absolutely nothing, nothing but purely the will and want to execute it.

Nothing but the inexplicable bliss she felt at seeing the lively creatures swim, nothing but the unreasonable grief she suffered at the sight of their extermination.

Nothing but the terror of an empty ocean.

Blazing meteorites torched the ocean floor. One ship after another disintegrated into dust. Slime's core mass held Tatsumeru tightly, screaming.

"Boss! We need to stop now! We need to get what species we have into the underground safety! We're dropping too fast."

A giant eye grown at the top of Tatsumeru's base was wide open, staring at the hateful red sky. Her sclera was masked by a similar crimson.

I swear… one day… I will have the power to revert fate! The power to revolt against the heavens! The power to PRESERVE LIFE!

She didn't notice as the noises around her fainted away. Her vision ceased. The rainbow disappeared. The wailing of death subsided. All she had her sight trained on was the bloody red sky. All she had heard was her oath, repeated over and over again, never forgotten in her infinite reincarnations. Not after her memories failed. Not after the worlds had shifted.

* * *

The bubble of fog popped. The three Ent Elder sat like a stone, staring at each other, shocked wordless.

"Get… get her back." The peace in the Head Elder's everlasting calm faltered.

"Yes, yes sir." The Fourth-Bounder to his right complied. His hand unmistakingly shook, a detail that should never happen on a man of his magnitude.

"Her… That was the purest determination I have ever seen!" The other Elder breathed. "Wow…"

The three was silent. The figure of an unconscious green-haired girl rose out of the River and entered the hole of spatial distortion. In a blink, she was back in the square, lying right in front of the three Elders.

"Remember our own test back then?" The Head Elder let out a reminiscent smile. "If I had even a tenth of her resolution, a tenth of her Psyche, I would have advanced into the Central Counsel."

"I can't believe it." The right Elder remarked. "I just can't believe it. Is there a chance that our little village could sustain the birth of a Fifth-Bounder?"

"With her oath… probably even more than that." The center man spoke gently, casting his eyes caringly on the timid, oblivious figure on the ground. "A trainer could possess no harmony with the universe's essence, but if she could find and follow her Psyche to the end, she would become a true God."  
"The Universe hates Gods anyways. It's one more being it couldn't control."

"Time to wake her up."

* * *

In a daze, Tatsumaki heard an ancient voice by her ear. "My child, who are you?"

"Who am I?" She repeated the question dreamily. "I am the Preserver of Life."

"Yes. Yes you are."

A sudden brilliant green lit up Tatsumaki's Pneuma and radiated deep into the innermost parts of her soul, encasing her entire being in a tender, blissful gleam.

A speck of vivacious viridescence roamed far, far into her astral realm, until it hovered atop a cavernous, grey ravine. As if unpleased with the existence of the tear, it reached down and bathed it in a parakeet sheen.

The ravine rumbled and was pushed together by an unyielding command. It shone into the brightest light since the Big Bang, until the gap was squeezed together to half of its previous width.

Then, the brilliance stopped, but still overwhelming the canyon in a guarding bubble that prevented any chance of its reopening.

Meanwhile, Tatsumaki's Pneuma danced and skipped with an untrackable, primordial beat that had not existed in a human for eons. On the other hand, this was a rhythm that was contained in a grandiose Parasol for much, much too long.

* * *

When Tatsumaki came groggily back to awareness, she felt as if she had taken a nap that lasted for millions of years. Before she could process that, she did a double take at her surroundings.

The crown of the Parasol Tree that encased her was glowing and dimming on a tempo eerily familiar to her.

A second thought made her realize that it was, in fact, the cadence of her heartbeat. Sensing that Tatsumaki had woken, streams of green wavered from within the leaves and danced around the girl.

In the background, there was an abstract cheering and the sound of temple bells playing, but when she listened closely, there was really nothing.

A vibrant strand of light dashed onto Tatsumaki's arm and revolved around the physique. The esper watched softly without protest. Beyond her notice, her usual reflex of vigilence and guard faded.

The ring of brilliance spun slower, condensing into a solid, jade bracelet on her right wrist. Tatsumaki touched it, and warmth filled her Pneuma. She had no idea what it was for, but… she liked it.

* * *

Falcon paced on the branch of the Tree. It was a comical sight seeing the short-legged creature stroll, but none of the First Limiters on site had the patience to be droll.

The moon was barely a shade brighter than pitch black. Translated to the period of day on Earth, it was the end of dusk, with only a tuft of stubborn sunlight that clung on to the side of the mountain.

"It's been three days, Sir." Octo, face wrinkled with worry, threw a glimpse at Saitama. "Are you sure she'll be okay?"

The bald man looked up from the turkey leg under which his face was buried. "Huh? Come again?"

Octo's eyes twitched. "Sir, are you…"

"Yeah man! You asked me this a hundred times. It's getting too much even if it's under twenty words." Saitama sighed. "Sometimes, you have to let the kids go on their own, old man."

The Octopus glanced at the hero dubiously, before murmuring and sitting down. In the days they had been waiting together, he had successfully probed his new Governor's personality. While the word he came up with for a description was an understated 'eccentric', he also recognized the power behind the man's voice.

It was a majestic confidence hidden deep, one that fueled his seemingly senseless actions and words.

However, he was not clueless. He was the portrayal of purity, as if unstained by the politics and unspoken protocols of the world— like a baby.

But he was not a mere newborn. This, as much, had stated the conflict.

One could not behave so carefreely in the world that frowned upon naivety. It forced everyone to be firmly attached to the swirling vortex of rules that crushed their childhood innocence. The rules that made them forget their innermost laughs and toss away the happiness that once made a child dream.

This man had not. That, by itself, was the utmost expression of strength— such that could oppose a world and flicker the parasitic authorities off his shoulder.

The strong had the right to not comply with standards.

The majority of them skipped over the fact, but Octo picked up on the Saitama's remarkable attitude on the first day.

In his eyes, he saw no worries. It was enough to mollify the Sea Chief.

Another hour passed. Suddenly, Saitama stood up and peered at the sky. The First Limiters, witnessing his abrupt action, followed in alert, but they had no clue what he was so alarmed at.

Saitama glared past the distracting greenery miles into the center, his countenance sharply sculpted. After a while, his eyes calmed. The man reached over and patted Octo, who had shrunken down to human size, on the back.

"She did it, pal."

Octo's eyes widened. Before he could reply, the Parasol Tree erupted in a rain of lights and songs. An immense aura pulsed from the branch they were standing on and pushed the First Limiters dozens of miles into the distance.

Saitama narrowed his eyes and glued his feet to the foliage. The aura, as if identifying his strength, avoided his body and gave him a meter-wide circle with no green shade.

Appearing out of thin air, specks of emerald dust rotated around each level of the grand Parasol. The mystic lyrics echoed louder and louder, until half of the moon was encased by the hypnotic tune.

A slim figure floated out of the top of the Tree. The dusts encompassing the massive growth elevated and spun, with Tatsumaki's silhouette being the eye of the storm. Gradually, the whirlpool condensed as it closed in on her.

As it did so, her image shimmered into brilliance— first the twinkle of cinder, then an active volcano, until the intensity ruptured into a full-on solar nebulae that rivaled the suns of the Triarchic system.

She stood, strands of light gathered in a madly twirling gyro that made her look like a projection from paradise. Brightness streamed from her and the Tree below, deporting the suffocating darkness from every corner of the tiny moon's hemisphere.

The esper watched expressionlessly as her light undulated into the distance. The entire moon was below her feet, but her Pneuma covered every nook and cranny of the surface facing into space.

"My name is Tatsumaki." She spoke aloud, to no one in particular. However, as her words left her mouth, it blared in the ears of all of the lifeforms on the land where light could reach.

At once, all heads rose to stare at the royal figure hanging against the deep darkness.

Tatsumaki…

The species imprinted the name deep into their hearts. They did not know what the meaning was behind her name, but they assigned one:

The Bringer of Light.

Tatsumaki. Tornado of Terror. Bringer of Light.

* * *

Billions of trillions of light years away, a large cloud of mist floated in space. The clutter of debris was the size of a galaxy, but it was still only a grain of sand against the ocean of stars.

There was no life in the haze. Only an enormous wooden sarcophagus drifted with the fog.

The motionless silence continued on for a supposed eternity, until the lid of the coffin was suddenly shoved apart.

A hand reached out and grasped onto the side, before a human form lifted himself out of the container.

The man stood, shoulders wider than planets and a height that reduced stars to ants. When he moved, the Concepts bent around him, as if he was the true god in the realm. He was the embodiment of perfection.

But, an extensive, silver chain stretched from inside the coffin, attached to a collar around his neck. The chain was glittered with the shadows of stars, millions of them, intricately varnishing each loop of the chain.

Nevertheless, shackle had no observable effect in restraining the man, as if it was more of an accessory than a hindrance. The marvellous statue lifted up the lid that he had pushed aside. Compared with his gargantuan size, the exquisite details carved on the casket's cover seemed like the most delicate decoration.

The design was in the shape of four leaves that painted the top of the shroud. Three of them were lit, but their light was faint and precarious. The last was completely dark.

The man laid his hand on the blank leaf and gently caressed it. For a split instant, his palm disintegrated into a mass of rainbow, before recovering, as if all had been an illusion, if there was such an audience to witness the scene.

When he lifted his arm, the leaf was glowing with a dim viridescence. However, compared with the inconsistent wavering of the three other leaves that looked like the expiration of three venerable candles, the newly illuminated mark glittered with the jubilance of an infant, with the vigor of early dawn.

A secluded voice, chiseled with the vestige of primeval tracks, rang through the mist, before bouncing off the borders.

"Your last inheritor."

"I'm too old. I can't help her as much as I did the others. Not anymore."

"My Lord, can you see this? Can you see our last hope from your resting place? Can you sense her up in the Aether?"

The man quieted, staring into the distance, past the countless spheres of sizes, at a region of the Universe that had an invisible bent in space. There was a barrier— a barrier of disturbed Concepts that sealed off the millions of galaxies within.

"She's in The Curb, your majesty. Why is she your choice?"

He sighed. Soundlessly, he raised a foot and stepped back into the coffin. Soon, he lied back down, his chain beneath his body. The cover of the sarcophagus automatically placed itself onto the vessel, stamping it shut.

The occult glow of the viridescence still radiated onwards, like it had done for the eons past. What was different was that now, the light originated from four leaves.

* * *

**A/N: This is a different type of chapter than you expected, I'm sure. It's even my first time writing something like this, or even ever seeing something similar. Please tell me your opinion.**

***Note: some of these biology facts are correct, while others are adjusted for fictional purposes. Creatures do not evolve this fast. There is nothing that could resist being in lava. Please do not attack me for these details. xD**

**To some of you, the majority of this chapter may seem completely unnecessary to the story, but please, just trust me. It'll make the story line a hundred chapters later much more entertaining.**

**Another thing I will address is what I'll be doing with Saitama: Nothing.**

**He has a problem… a very giant problem. He is too strong. My fic focuses on adventure, and there will be a lot of battling. However, I can't have him go in and KO everything I throw… so it'll be interesting spinning up a plot for him. Nevertheless, I found a key weakness in his character (battling-wise), and you will see what I have in store for our 'unbeatable' hero soon. Please, my great readers, I ask you to be patient in that aspect.**

**On the other hand, our favorite Tatty is getting a lot of attention. I hope you like what I am doing with her. If anyone is confused about what "Tatsumeru" is, leave it in a review, and I will PM you some of the details. However, the fog of mystery is what I intended.**

**I am introducing a lot of new terms in the fic. I hope that as I write and as I put these terms into more usage, you are beginning to understand what some of them mean, such as Concepts, Psyche, and Pneuma.**

**As always, I hope you enjoyed my writing. Please leave a review. Follow to get update notifications in your email, and the Favorite button will also be much appreciated!**


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